to the national Democratic convention at Chicago. The county conventions have been held, in each of which there has been a violent contest between Mr. Vallandigham's own friends, one set determinedly struggling to make him the delegate to Chicago and the other violently resisting. The district convention will be held at Hamilton on the 15th of the present month, and a fierce struggle between the contending factions will take place. The more certainly to insure the success of Vallalandigham his friends have called a grand mass meeting to be held at the same time and place, and have been at work for several weeks, assisted in their efforts by himself in Canada, to urge upon such leaders of the peace party as Fernando Wood, D. W. Voorhees, Alexander Long, Abbe McMaster, James W. Wall, and others, to be present to address the assembly.

It is intended that this mass meeting shall serve as the opening demonstration of the peace party of the country, and to put in shape and form the objects and purposes it has in view. I have ample evidence of a confidential character from the most reliable and undoubted sources of the importance which Mr. Vallandigham and his friends attach to this meeting to his selection as delegate from the district on that occasion; and I propose, therefore, to take the precaution to have a representative present who will take notes and furnish me a full history of the proceedings. The contest in the district is not one arising from any personal opposition to Mr. Vallandigham, but a number of his long-devoted and most active friends are violently opposed to his election, because, as they allege, it would commit them to his going to Chicago or coming back to the district, which they think would be resisted by the Government and bring on a collision which they are neither prepared nor able to resist, and would thus overwhelm them and him in destruction. I refer you for further information on this point to a sealed package, forwarded herewith, containing statements of a confidential character on the subject.

Before leaving this branch of the subject I may yet add that I have the best of reasons to know that Mr. Vallandigham himself is not entirely confident now of his ability to carry out the program agreed upon by the supreme council of the northern section of the O. A. K. for the opening demonstration at Chicago, and that it is now his determination to decide for himself, before the meeting of Chicago convention, whether he will retain his present position as the head of the order and engage in the movement at Chicago which he had contemplated. The action of the district convention at Hamilton, on the 15th instant, will no doubt go far to influence his final decision. Should it be against him I have reason to believe his heart will fail him to make any effort to reach either Chicago for his own district; but if elected a delegate I have no doubt he will make the attempt at every hazard, and will be sustained by all those who are, to use the language of the order, "of the household of faith. "

Having thus given a brief summary or hasty outline of the character, purpose, and extent of this stupendous conspiracy, I refer you, for more minute details or particulars, to the various documents which will accompany this report, and now proceed to give some account of the extend and operations of the order in this department.

Under the auspices of this secret organization a regular line of smugglers and mail carriers has been established and is now being carried on from a point on the Pacific Railreen miles from this city, to Price's army. From the point named, traveling only by night, and with horses and pack-mules, they pass to Mattox Mills, on the