developed the nature of the business being carried on between this port and the miscalled neutral ports of Havana and Nassau.

Upon personal examination I had no doubt that the house of Avendano was largely interested in or the consignees of the major part of the cargo of the Fox, and in order to put a stop to this traffic, which could still be carried on through the fifty-three openings into the Gulf of Mexico from Louisiana, I called upon the house of Avendano, and upon personal examination they did not deny the part that they had taken in this traffic.

I required them, therefore, having captured in bulk one-half the fruits of this illegal traffic, and having captured the other half thereof in the shape of a bill of exchange, to pay over the other half, being the bills of exchange. This they did, and received the bills of exchange and papers showing the nature of their business, regarding that as a light punishment for their crimes.

Because of other like transactions which have since come to my knowledge the senior partner has escaped to Havana, but the house is still carrying on business here and are the consignees of the steamer Cardenas, which has been the cause of so many breaches of our quarantine laws and so many complaints of the Spanish minister.

Avendano sent a rebel lawyer, who had refused to renew his oath of allegiance to the United States, to me to make some representations of the matter and to argue certain legal questions, in answer to some suggestions as to the amount of fine. I told him that Avendano might think himself well off if he lost no more of the profits of this infernal trade.

This, it will be observed, was about the 19th of May, and no complaint is made of it for three months, until emboldened by the success of the complaints to the commission here, which has don more to strengthen the hand of secession than any other occurrence at the Southwest since my advent in New Orleans, and the commissioner of which commission, now, as I am ready to prove, acts as the paid attorney of rebels in making claims against the United States, from retainers taken because of his acting here in his official capacity.

This commission, I say, emboldened these new complaints of my action by mercantile pirates and marauders, who supplied arms and powder to traitors and are only saved from consequences of treason because they have not given their allegiance to the country that had given them protection and enabled them to accumulate fortunes, advantages which they believed their won Government could not give them, and so preferred to live under ours, but not to assume their proper obligations.

hey were only fined.

His excellency the Spanish minister seems to think that running the blockade carries its own punishment with it, but this is not a case of running a blockade merely, but is the case of an importer of arms of an army contractor for the rebel Government, and this draft which the house of Avendano has paid and the money been used for the support of the troops of the United States in this department, in only one-half of the proceeds of a single adventure of the house of Avendano in breaking the laws and aiding the rebellion, the other half being returned to the Confederates in arms and munitions of war.

I aver to the Secretary of War, upon my official responsibility, that without the aid furnished by foreign mercantile houses in New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston, as I am convinced by the most

44 R R-SERIES III, VOL II