conformity with the stipulations of the cartel," was an implication that paroles liable to the same objection before the first-named date and after the last should be regarded as valid, and was therefore necessarily vicious on its very face. I also told you that another reason for declining your proposition was the one which caused you to make it, to wit, that the paroles which had been given to us were between the dates embraces in your proposition, while those given to you were before and after. When I made the objection to your proposal that it intimated that paroles "not in conformity with the stipulations of the cartel," before the 23rd of May and after the 3rd of July of this year, were to be regarded as valid, I asked you to state in writing that no such intimation was conveyed. This you declined to do, saying somewhat brusquely that you did not wish to have any discussion about the matter. upon my pressing the subject, however, you put a memorandum at the foot of the proposition saying that the proposal was in reply to my letter of August 5, 1863, and in lieu of the proposition therein made by me. You would not, did not, disclaim the implication which your proposition contained, nor have you done so since. My letter of the 5th of August only demanded, in compliance with your own General Orders, Numbers 100, that if you rejected the paroles the parties should be delivered to us. You informed me that you would transmit my proposition to Washington and give me a speedy answer in person or by letter.

On the 7th of September I complained that no reply had been returned, although two weeks had elapsed and two boats had been dispatched to City Point since the date of our interview. At the same time I informed you that the Confederate authorities would consider themselves entirely at liberty to pursue any course with reference to any proposition which they might deem right and proper under all the circumstances of the case.

Accordingly, on the 11th of September, in pursuance of this plain intimation, I notified you that on the following day (that being the time when the notice would reach you) I would declared exchange the Vicksburg captures. I gave you the divisions, brigades, regiments, and batteries. I also informed you that I had in my possession more valid paroles of your officers and men that would be an equivalent for the exchange I then declared; that, in addition, I had delivered at City Point some 10,000 or 12,000 men since the last declaration of exchange; that as it had been the practice, however, of the agents of exchange whenever one of them declared a special exchange to allow the other to select the equivalents, I gave you that privilege, and if you did not avail yourself of it I would name the Federal officers and men who were discharged from their parole by reasons of the declaration of exchange then made. This notification to you was not only in accordance with former practice, but was sanctioned, if not demanded, by the fifth article of the cartel, which, after providing for the manner in which "each party" may discharge "their" officers and men from parole, says, "thus enabling each party to relieve from parole such of their own officers and men as the party may choose. " I have said this course was in accordance with former practice, and for proof refer you to the letters of Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow, former agent of exchange, of the following dates of this year, to wit: April 6, 8, 13, 19, and 27; May 12, 26, and 30; June 5, 9, and 13, wherein he declared the exchange of Federal officers and men. In one of Lieutenant-Colonel Ludlow's communications of May 30, 1863, he says:

I have declared exchanged the Holly Springs capture; the Ninety-first Regiment Illinois Volunteers, captured at Elizabethtown, Ky., December 27, 1862, and the