The piratical ram Stonewall has reached Nassau and is anchored in the outer harbor, from which our vessels are excluded. The State Department promise decisive measures with Sir Frederick Bruce and the British authorities.
Extraordinary
efforts are made, in every quarter where it is supposed influence can be felt,
to embarrass the Navy Department and procure favor for Henderson, Navy Agent,
whose trial is near. G. W. Blunt has come on from New York for the express
purpose of getting the case postponed, by inducing the Department to interfere.
Told Blunt the case had gone to the courts and I could not undertake to interfere
and direct the courts in the matter. The attorneys had the case in hand. Blunt
requested me not to give a positive refusal till Monday. In the mean time
Preston King called on me on Sunday, as I ascertained at the request of Blunt.
King had, on two previous occasions, conversed with me on the subject, and then
and now fully concurred in the propriety and correctness of my course. Mr.
Lowrey, brother-in-law of Fox, has written the latter entreating him to favor
Henderson, saying I would yield, if Fox would only take ground for H. Morgan
has written me begging I will not incur the resentment of the editors of
the Post by insisting on the prosecution. I am urged to do
wrong in order to let a wrongdoer escape.
Intelligence was
received this morning of the capture of Jefferson Davis in southern Georgia. I
met Stanton this Sunday P.M. at Seward's, who says Davis was taken disguised in
women's clothes. A tame and ignoble letting down of the traitor.
