The facts and grounds of the action taken by our Government may be briefly stated, and some exposure made of the untenable and unjustifiable pretense on which they are inaugurating a fearful system of mutual retaliation on defenseless prisoners. It may be not unworthy of note how hasty and cruel has been the action taken by this infamous agent (General Butler), even on the assumption of the property of his line of action, since without previous inquiry as to the facts or announcement of his purpose, he has at once proceeded to the extreme of harshness. In one class of the cases, on mere belief, when himself admitting doubt and asking, if in error, to be promptly corrected, he has degraded honorable officers and soldiers of his own color and race, prisoners of war in his power, to compulsory labor (practically to slavery) in retaliation for the return of recaptured negro slaves to their owners. In the other class of cases, on the evidence of two deserters only, who while stating certain negroes in the Federal uniform had been removed from the prison to work on the entrenchments, yet ventured no assertion that they had been placed under fire or exposed to any danger, he has at once placed captured prisoners, preferably of the reserve class (probably because supposed to be of the gentlemen of Richmond), at hard work in the canal being dug by him, in the most exposed possible position, under the almost constant fire of our guns. These things, however, are incidental to the main issues. They only illustrate with what wantonness and recklessness this wretch yields to his habitual instincts of cruelty, and fortified the position of our Government to hold no communication with him.

The course, as I believe, pursued by our Government toward recaptured slaves is this: When among the colored men taken in arms from the enemy are found any who are ascertained by their own confession or due identification to be slaves who have run away or been taken from their owners in the Confederacy, they are considered and treated as recaptured slaves, and advertisement is made according to provisions of an act of Congress to enable the owners to come forward and reclaim them. No orders have been given by this Department to put others than slaves at work on the fortifications, and colored soldiers of the United States when captured have not, by direction of the Department, been treated otherwise than as prisoners of war, unless identified or claimed to be recaptured slaves. Slaves have been and are frequently employed by the Government in constructing works of defense, and not unnaturally, when engaging the labor of others, slaves under the charge of the Government, unreclaimed by their masters, are subjected to similar labor. If colored soldiers not slaves have been employed in such work, it can only have been by mistake, and on ascertainment they will be recalled. If slaves, they have been legitimately so employed. On these facts, stripped of aggravations which the barbarity of General Butler has added, the simple issue is presented, whether on the recapture of known slaves in arms and acting in the character of soldiers of the Federal Army, their reclamation and delivery to their owners shall be followed by the retaliation of ignominious labor, and savage exposure on our officers and soldiers held as prisoners of war. Such pretension shocks all the sentiments of justice and reason. As slaves taken by violence in war or seduced by the instigation of the enemy should, on being recaptured, be restored to their former owners is but the plain result of their recognition as property, or even as persons held to previous service, it is difficult to conceive on what principle their previous relations as persons or property can be changed toward their former owners by the violence or seduction of an enemy.