vessel and cargo, exempts both from the penalty. The object of enforcing the penalty is to guard against future violations of the blockade, not of any that may thereafter be declared. The whole purpose is to secure the particular blockade against violation and no other. When, therefore, that blockade is raised the reason for forfeiture ceases. In the language of Wheaton: "When the blockade is raised a veil is thrown over everything that has been done, and the vessel is no longer in delicto. The completed at on is by subsequent events done away." (Wheaton's Law of Nations, 3rd ed., p. 550.) The same rule, as well as the others I have stated, will be found to be well established by, among other authorities, the case of the Saunders. (2nd Gallison, p. 210; 1st Kent's Commentaries, 6th ed., p. 151, and Carringon et al. versus the Merchants" Insurance Co., 8th Peters" Reports, pp. 495-519.)

My opinion, therefore, is that the sum received from Messrs. Kennedy & Co. should be returned to them.

I have the honor to be, with high regard, your obedient servant,

REVERDY JOHNSON.

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF THE GULF,
New Orleans, July 22, 1862.

Honorable REVERDY JOHNSON,

Commissioner, &c.:

MY DEAR SIR: I have your decision in the matter of the money of S. H. Kennedy & Co., and while I shall pay back the money in obedience to it, if the partners take the oath of allegiance, I must dissent from the conclusions to which you have come, toto animo.

The facts are briefly these: Kennedy & Co. were merchants, doing business in New Orleans, the members of which were citizens of the United States.

They shipped cotton, bought at Vicksburg and brought to New Orleans, from a bayou on the coast, whence steamers were accustomed to run the blockade to Havana, on board steamships that were engaged in carrying goods from the neighborhood of New Orleans to Havana, in defiance of the laws and the President's proclamation, and under the further agreement with the Confederate authorities here that a given per cent. of the value of their cargoes should be returned in arms and munitions of war for the use of the rebels.

Without such an agreement no cotton could be shipped from New Orleans, and this was publicly known, and the fact of knowledge that a permit for the vessel to ship cotton could only be got on such terms was not denied at the hearing.

The cotton was sold in Havana and the net proceeds were invested in a draft (first, second, and third of exchange) dated April 30, 1862, payable to the London agent of the house of Kennedy & Co., and the first and second sent forward to London, and the third, with account sales and vouchers, forwarded to the firm here through an illicit mail on board the steamer Fox, likewise engaged in carrying, unlawfully, merchandise and in allicit mail between Havana and the rebel States.

The third of exchange and papers were captured by the army of the Unie 10th day of May, on board the Fox, flagrante delicto, surrounded by rebel arms and munition, concealed in a bayou leading out of Barataria Bay, attempting to land here contraband mails and scarcely less destructive arms and ammunition, to be sent through the byways and swamps to the enemy.