insurrectionary States and their sympathizers in Europe as well as in the loyal States: John Munroe & Co., Charles Le Cesne, C. A. Robert, Maury Bros., and Mr. Converse.

Will you please cause a quiet but thorough watch to be kept over the movements of these parties and after the arrival of mail place them under surveillance and seize all correspondence and other papers and send them with your report to this Department?

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

F. W. SEWARD,

Assistant Secretary.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 19, 1861.

Colonel MARTIN BURKE, Fort Hamilton, N. Y.

COLONEL: You will permit Mr. Archibald, the British consul at New York, to see Rutson Maury, * * * a British subject now confined at Fort Lafayette.

I am, colonel, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

POST-OFFICE DEPARTMENT, November 19, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: The Postmaster-General submits to your notice the accompanying letter from William L. Burt, esq., and will be glad to receive any suggestion you may desire to make as to the matter to which it relates.

I have the honor to be your obedient servant,

T. P. TROTT,

Chief Clerk.

[Inlcosure.]

BOSTON, November 15, 1861.

Honorable MONTGOMERY BLAIR, U. S. Postmaster-General.

DEAR SIR: I telegraphed you* relative to the letters of Rutson Maury, Jr., and Maury & Wilder, as I knew that Rutson Maury, Jr., had been arrested and sent to Fort Lafayette and these letters if resent, whether directed to him or to James Maury & Co., New Orleans, or Maury & Wilder, Galveston, Tex., probably contained information and plans to carry out a scheme to have all the cotton in the exposed Southern ports transferred to English hands. This plan in event of confiscation or capture would save the cotton and in event the ports were opened it would be ready for a profitable market.

Maury is an Englishman undoubtedly, although he has said at times he was an American and has been spending his time in Louisiana and Alabama since last spring and is in open sympathy and action with the rebels. He stated here in Boston that he brought more than a thousand letters through from the South; also that he had the seal of the British consul (Mure) at New Orleans to protect the inclosures for Southern agents abroad. Maury and his brother were engaged in this scheme for getting letters through probably from the fact of their English origin and acquaintance.

The letters were delivered to Mr. Wainwright here in Boston before your dispatch arrived. Four of them for Rutson Maury, Jr., seven of

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* Not found.

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