make up the balance in army equivalents. I have made an arrangement with the Federal Secretary of the Navy for the exchange of all navy officers and men on both sides, the party having the excess to receive army equivalents. For that reason I am anxious to have all navy officers, sailors, and marines among the Federal prisoners in the trans-Mississippi district delivered . Of course, the exchange is to be officer for officer and man for man.

RO. OULD,

Agent of Exchange.

TORONTO, CANADA WEST, September 22, 1864.

Colonel HILL, Commandant of Post, Johnson's Island, Ohio:

SIR: We have just learned that Captain Charles H. Cole, an escaped prisoner, has been arrested by the military authorities of your post, and that he is to be tried on the charge of being a public spy. As agents and commissioners of the Confederate States we protest against his trial on this charge. As a prisoner, he was brought into your lines against his will. Since his escape from prison he has never been able to return to his own country; therefore he was legitimately where he was found and taken. Whatever designs he may have conceived, he had done nothing whatever in violation of the law of nations, of any law of the United States, or regulations of the Army. It would be contrary to every principle of law, either public, common, civil, or statutory, to punish him for his designs or purposes, proved he had carried none of them into execution, on the hypothesis that you have reason to believe he contemplated an act of violence. If he fail to carry it out, or make any attempt looking to that end, he cannot surely be adjudged guilty of any offense. If you proceed to extremities with Captain Cole we would feel it our duty to call on the authorities of the Confederate States to adopt proper measures of retaliation. If you can justly condemn Captain Cole as a spy, every soldier and officer of the United States would be tried and condemned as spies. We admit your right to return him to prison as a recaptured prisoner, but any other punishment would be, in our judgment, against justice and public law. If any importance is attached to his being within your lines without wearing his uniform, the circumstances which surrounded him as an escaped prisoner will readily explain the reason of its absence. He had no uniform to wear. He did, however, change his name, which is usual in such cases. He has conducted himself with the boldness, courage, and frankness of a true soldier in all his associations. He deserves the fate of none other.

We are, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servants,

J. THOMPSON. C. C. CLAY, JR.

TORONTO, CANADA WEST, September 22, 1864.

His Excellency JEFFERSON DAVIS:

SIR: Some time since Charles H. cole, captain, C. S. Army, and also a lieutenant in the Navy, was sent to reconnoiter the position of the war steamer Michigan and ascertain whether it was possible to capture her. He found her lying opposite Sandusky, guarding Johnson's Island. He conceived and perfected a plan for he capture. The