Soldiers, while committing no offence, had been perfidiously attacked and inhumanly murdered in your streets; no punishment had been awarded, and I believe no arrests had bcca made for these atrocious crimes ; supplies of provisions intended for this garrison had been stopped : the intention to capture this fort had been boldly proclaimed ; your most public thorougiifares were daily patrolled by large numbers of troops, armed and clothed, at least in jjart, with articles stolen from the United States; and the Federal flag, while waving over the P''ederal offices, was cut down by some person wearing the uniforin of a Slaryland soldier. To add to the foregoing, an assemblage elected in defiance of law, but claiming to be the legislative body of your State, and so recognized by the Executive of JIaryland, was debating the forms of abrogating the Federal compact. If all this be not rebellion, I know not what to call it. I certainly regard it, as sufHcient legal cause for suspending the writ of Habeas Corpus.

Besidea, there were certain grounds of expediency on which I declined obeying your mandate.

1st. The writ of Iladeas Corpus, in the hands of an unfriendly power, might depopulate this fortification and place it at the mercy of a " Baltimore mob," in much less time than it could be done by all the appliances of modern warfare.

2d. The ferocious spirit exhibited by your community towards the United States army, would render me very averse from appearing publicly and unprotected in the City of Baltimore, to defend the interests of the bixly to which 1 belong. A few days since, a soldier of this command, while outside the walls, was attacked by a fiend or fiends in human shape, almost deprived of life, and left unprotected about half a mile from garrison.