DEPARTMENT OF STATE,

Washington City, August 20, 1862.

Honorable EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War:

SIR: Mr. Stuart, the British charge d"affaires, has presented to me a complaint made by one E. Reilly, a British subject, that he had brought suit before the deputy provost-marshal at New Orleans against one Mr. Ainslie to recover possession of a store, and that, as a condition of entertaining the suilt, that officer required of him to take an oath to observe neutrality between the United States and the insurgents.

Mr. Stuart has also transmitted to me papers showing that Major- General Butler has required John Jay, W. G. O"Regan, W. Ramez, and Mrs. Ann Wild, British Subjects, to take the same oath as a condition of allowing them passes to leave New Orleans.

The complaints made in them are vexatious, but it is perhaps well to establish the principle that oaths are not to be prescribed by us to aliens or to be required of our citizens by other citizens as conditions of rights and privileges. I have therefore no suggest that instructions be given Major-General Butler or other military authority at New Orleans to discontinue the practice of requiring the oath complained of, and to make some regulation which in cases of doubt will enable aliens applying for favors, that can only be allowed to loyal or at least inoffensive persons, to prove that they belong to that class. They cannot well complain if the regulation is more inconvenient to them than the oath.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

WILLIAM H. SEWARD.

SPRINGFIELD, ILL., August 20, 1862.

(Received 11.40 p. m.)

General C. P. BUCKINGHAM:

It is impossible to-day to give the details required in your dispatch of yesterday. I believe there are 45,000 enrolled men in this State to-day, and by the 22nd there will be 50,000. About thirty of these regiments are full, and others nearly so. For want of a sufficient detail of mustering officers, but four regiments are yet mustered. None have gone to the field, but six are under marching orders. By the 1st of September I think I can have organized fifty regiments without new enlistment after the 22nd instant. I send my adjutant-general's report this day by mail. Our State is much neglected in the failure of the Government to supply our troops with arms, tents, and camp utensils. Thousands are sleeping on the naked earth without any covering.

RICHARD YATES.

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., August 20, 1862.

(Received 2.20 p. m.)

Brigadier General C. P. BUCKINGHAM,

Assistant Adjutant-General, U. S. Army;

Under the late call of the President for volunteers I have organized and completed the following regiments: Sixty-fifth, Sixty-sixth, Sixty-seventh, Sixty-eight, Sixty-ninth, Seventieth, Seventy-first, Seventy-second, Seventy-third, Seventy-fourth, Seventy-fifth, Eighty-seventh, Eighty-eight, Twelfth, and Sixteenth. The last two were twelve-