ment. The manner in which it was done has given you offense. I regret it and apologize for it with the only excuse I can make, namely, the necessity of employing another head to do what ought to be done and yet which I had not time to do personally. I place your answer on the files of the Department of State as an act of justice to yourself, and I beg you to be assured that all the unkindness of that answer does not in the least diminish the satisfaction with which I have performed in the best way I was able a public duty with a desire to render you a service.

I am, with great respect, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

It may be proper to state that adopting the form of address to ex-Presidents of the United States used by the late Mr. Webster I have invariably left off all titles of address as being most respectful.

CONCORD, N. H., January 7, 1862.

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

DEAR SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the reception of your letter of the 30th ultimo. It could hardly have surprised you to learn that I failed to discover in your official note a desire to render me a service. You will excuse me if I regard even a suggestion from a source so eminent that I am "a member of a secret league the object of which is to overthrow this Government" as rather too graveto have been sent off with as little consideration as a note of rebuke might have been addressed to a delinquent clerk of one of the department.

The writer of the anonymous letter it seems "was detected and subsequently avowed the authorship," and yet I am not advised whether he disavows reference to me or whether there was an attempt to inculpate me in his disclosure. These were the only facts connected with him, his treason or his confession at all material for me to know. I suppose I am left to infer the latter, because although my name does not appear in the extract to which my attention was particularly called you still state that an aspersion upon my "fair fame and loyalty" came into your hands. I think you will upon reflection arrive at the conclusion that the whole ground upon which the allegation is repeated should as a simpleact of justice have been placed before me. It was not the manner of your official note as you seem to suppose nor any form of address which awakened on my part a deep sense of wrong. These whatever they may have been were not worthy of serious notice. The substance was that I intended as courteously as I could but very distinctly to repel.

I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

FRANKLIN PIERCE.

FORT LAFAYETTE, February 3, 1862.

EDITOR NEW YORK TIMES:

You will confer a favor and at the same time do an act of justice to the undersigned by correcting a misstatement in your Washington dispatches in to-day's issue under the head of arrests in Michigan. It is stated that the undersigned together with Matthew Hodge and R. R. Boyle* were arrested at North Branch for destroying the mails. We

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*No record of the arrest of Hodge and Boyle can be found.

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