I can assure you on the honor of a gentleman that I have at no time had any communication or correspondence of a political character or been engaged in or a party to any act of rebellion with any person or persons either on this or the other side of the Atlantic, North, South, East or West. In evidence of my neutrality there is in possession of the Treasury Department a letter written by Mr. William Mure, Her Britannic Majesty's consul at New Orleans, which I handed to Mr. Harrington, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, prior to my arrest. My business alone and my family who arrived from England at New Orleans in May last have solely engrossed my attention since I left Liverpool twelve mounths since. My business as a catton buyer for England and the North is at an end for some time, hence my object in going South was my family.

Now, sir, allow me to ask you as an act of humanity, looking at my guiltlessness of any intention of acting wrongfully, some clemency which I would also seek from the friendship and esteem felt by my mother (Mrs. Sarah M. Maury) toward yourself. My wife is and has been long an invalid, a stranger where she is (Bladen Springs, Ala.), and where she has been ever since her first arrival in this country and moreover destitute of funds as owing to the disturbed state of the country I could not draw a bill on any quarter prior to my leaving the South.

At least if I am still to remain in confinement allow me the privilege of knowing how long I am sentenced for, and if not asking you to grant too great a favor grant me a permit to write to my wife through General Wool at Fortness Monroe to inform her of my position.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

RUTSON MAURY, Jr.

DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, November 29, 1861.

JOHN A. KENNEDY, Esq., Superintendent of Police, New York.

SIR: The letter addressed to Maury Bros. sent hither shows that that house has been made a medium of communication for those violating the laws of the United States and of hostility to this Government. This ought not to be tolerated in view of the safety of the Government itself. If, however, the representative of the house at New York will give his parole that the practice shall be discontinued, and that he will receive and transmit no letters having for their object to evade the blockade or to do any other act of hostility toward the United States the correspondence of the house may then be delivered to them.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

OFFICE OF SUPT. OF THE METROPOLITAN POLICE,

New York, December 2, 1861.

Honorable WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

SIR: To-day I called on Messrs. Charles Le Cesne and Caesar Augusts Robert and returned to them the letters you returned to me belonging to these gentlemen. They expressed themselves entirely safisfied with the course the Government had taken toward them; very satisfactority explained the manner in which they were induced to forward letters South that had come into their possession in a legitimate way; readily agreed to any stipulation submitted in regard to the disposition of any similar letters they may receive.

On the contrary Mr. Maury endeavored to treat the proceeding lightly. He spoke very contemptuously of the course the Government