HDQRS. CITY GUARD, PROVOST-MARSHAL'S OFFICE,
Washington, D. C., October 21, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: In the order requiring a military guard to be placed over the residence of Judge Merrick is it desired by the honorable Secretary that the judge should be confined to his house?

I am, sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

A. PORTER,

Brigadier-General and Provost-Marshal.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, October 21, 1861.

Brigadier General ANDREW PORTER, Provost-Marshal, Washington.

GENERAL: In answer to your note of this date I have to say that it is not expected that Judge Merrick will be confined to his house. Indeed it may be sufficient to make him undeerstant that at a juncture like this when the public enemy is as it were at the gates of the capital the public safety is deemed to require that his correspondence and proceedings should be observed.

I am, general, your very obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, October 21, 1861.

ELISHA WHITTLESEY, Esq., First Comptroller of the Treasury.

SIR: I am instructed by the President to direct that until further orders no more moneys b paid from the treasury of the United States on account of the salary of William M. Merrick, assistan judge of the circuit court for the District of Columbia.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

SOUTH AMHERST, MASS., October 30, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State, Washington.

SIR: The day after the announcement in The New York World that Judge Merrick, of the U. S. circuit court, was placed under arrest I wrote to him conjuring him to disprove all suspicions of rebel sympathies and to stand firm in the front rank of the nation. Last night I received his reply thanking me for my interest in his welfare and declaring that he had conscientiously discharged with fidelity his private duties and public trust and quoting for his comfort the sentiment of the pious Psalmist who said (37: 6):

And He shall bring forth thy ritghteousness as the light, and thy udgment as the noonday.

Judge Merrick imputes his arrest to false information without any accusation being communicated to him that he may meet and repel as it deserves. No one in this vicinity will accuse me of rebel sympathies or of lack of patriotism at this time when the nation calls all faithful sons to rally bravely for the welfare of the country and posterity. I trust Judge Merrick is true to the nation and Government, and as a friend both to the Administration and to him I very respectfully and earnestly ask that he may be released from arrest or at least and with