impending draft. Appealing to our liturgy and practice, in proof of our loyalty to our Government on the broad principles of Christian truth, praying constantly in our public worship for yourself and all in authority,and deprecating "all sedition, privy conspiracy, and rebellion," believing our request to be in strict accordance with the true idea of toleration by our Government to all religious bodies without favoring or establishing any, we respectfully petition that any of our clergy of this diocese who may be drafted may be relieved from the actual bearing of arms as combatants in the field, by being assigned by you, as Commander-in-Chief, to special duties consistent with their sacred character and office. Relying upon your high character for justice to relieve them from difficulties of their position arising from the present enrollment act, we will ever pray.

In behalf of the convention.

WILLIAM H. DE LANCEY,

Bishop of the Diocese and President of the Convention.

[Inclosure No. 3.] Resolutions passed by the convention.

Resolved, That in the judgment of the convention the clergy of the church are bound in conscience and by their ordination vows to abstain from engaging as armed combatants in the military service.

Resolved, That when any of the clergy of this diocese shall be drafted under the law of 1864, the President of the United States is respectfully requested not to insist upon their entering into the military service as actual bearers of arms, but that such clergy may be assigned to special duties as chaplains, or to do duty in hospitals, or in the care of freedmen, or in such clerkships or other special duties as may be required by the War Department.

WAR DEPT., PROVOST-MARSHAL-GENERAL'S OFFICE, Washington, D. C., September 4, 1864.

Governor YATES,

Springfield, Ill.:

Your dispatch in reference to sub-districts in Illinois received. It will not be practicable to make new sub-division and assignments of quotas for the present draft, but the subject you present shall be attended to at the earliest moment at which it can be done without injury to the public service.

JAS. B. FRY,

Provost-Marshal-General.

VICKSBURG, MISS., September 5, 1864.

Hon. EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War, Washington, D. C.:

SIR: When recently in Natchez a colonel of one of the colored regiments stated that in consequence of the presence of agents from the Northern States offering large bounties for recruits, his men were deserting, procuring citizens" clothing, and secreting themselves until an opportunity offered of escaping from the place for the purpose of enlisting. The same state of things exists in the other colored regiments at the place. These agents propose to give bounties to