And whereas, it has become known that one of the belligerent in the said war-namely, the Prince Maximilian, who asserts himself to be Emperor in Mexico-has issued a decree in regard to the port of Matamoras and other Mexican ports which are in the occupation and possession of another of the said belligerent-namely, the United States of Mexico-which decree is in the following words:

"The port of Matamoras and all those of the northern frontier which have withdrawn from their obedience to the Government are closed to foreign and coasting traffic during such time as the empire of the law shall not be therein reinstated.

"ART. 2. Merchandise proceeding from the said ports, on arriving at any other where the excise of the Empire is collected, shall pay the duties on importation, introduction, and consumption; and on satisfactory proof of contravention shall be irremissible confiscated. Our minister of the treasury is charged with the punctual execution of this decree.

"Given at Mexico the 9th of July, 1866."

And whereas, the decree thus received, by declaring a belligerent blockade unsupported by competent military or naval force, is in violations of the neutral rights of the United States, as defined by the law of nations, as well as of the treaties existing between the United States of America and the aforesaid United States of Mexico:

Now, therefore, I, Andrew Johnston, President of the United States, do hereby proclaim and declare that the aforesaid decree is held, and will be held, by the United States to be absolutely null and void as against the Government and citizens of the United States; and that any attempt which shall be made to enforce the same against the Government or the citizens of the United States will be disallowed.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington the seventeenth day of August, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the ninety-first.

[SEAL.]

ANDREW JOHNSON.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD,

Secretary of State.

By order of the President of the United States:

E. D. TOWNSEND,

Assistant Adjutant-General.

GENERAL ORDERS,
WAR DEPT., ADJT. GENERAL'S OFFICE, Numbers 84.
Washington, October 4, 1866.

The following proclamations by the President are published for the information and government of the Army and all concerned:

I.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, by proclamation of the fifteenth and nineteenth of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, the President of the United States, in virtue of the power vested in him by the Constitution and the laws, declared that the laws of the United States were opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law;

And whereas, by another proclamation, made on the sixteen day of August, in the same year, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved July thirteen, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, the inhabitants of the States of Georgia, South Carolina, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida (except the inhabitants of that part of the State of Virginia lying west of the Allegheny Mountains, and of such other parts