SENOR DON ALMIRANTE VIZCARRO, Commanding Squadron off New York.

  SIR:  I have the honor to acknowledge your communication of this
  date, sent per flag-of-truce, in which you demand—­

  1st.—­That immediate surrender to the force under your command be
  made of the fortifications of this harbor, together with the Navy
  Yard at Brooklyn, and all munitions of war here existing.

2nd.—­That the cities of New York, Brooklyn and Jersey City do cause to be paid, on board of your flag-ship, within three days after the said surrender, the sum of fifty millions of dollars in gold, or in the paper currency of England or France.

And in which you announce that non-acquiescence in the foregoing will be followed by the bombardment of the said fortifications, the Navy Yard and the arsenals in New York City, by your squadron, after the lapse of twenty-four hours from noon this day.

In reply, I have to state that these demands are peremptorily refused and I have most solemnly to protest against so gross a violation of the laws of civilized warfare, as is indicated in your intention to attack a city within a period too short to enable the non-combatants to be safely removed.

  I have the honor to be, etc.,

  WINFIELD S. HANCOCK,

  Major-General Commanding.

This reply was telegraphed to New York, and Mr. Pierrepont Edwards, Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul-General, was one of the first to receive it.  He acted with the usual force and promptness with which British interests and the lives of British subjects are protected by British officials abroad.  That is to say, he first telegraphed to the British Minister at Washington, Mr. West, requesting, that the three great ironclads, “Devastation,” “Orion” and “Agamemnon,” all of which were then in Hampton Roads, be at once sent to New York.  Then he prepared a formal protest against the proposed action of the Spanish Admiral, which all the other foreign consuls at once signed, and which was delivered aboard the Spanish flag-ship by a boat bearing the British flag before three o’clock that afternoon.

The Spanish admiral took the protest into consideration to the extent of granting forty-eight hours’ time.  The consuls protested again at this as not being sufficient, and demanded five clear days.  The admiral refused to grant more than three; but when, before the three days had expired, the trio of English war-ships made their appearance, and calmly moved between his fleet and the shore, he changed his mind and granted the desired time—­which was wise, seeing that the English vessels could blow his squadron out of water with little trouble and not much injury to themselves.

The railroads which go out of New York, while perhaps adequate for all purposes of traffic in time of peace, are scarcely equal to the removal from the city of several hundred thousand women, children, sick and aged persons within a period of even five days.  People of this description cannot be moved as easily as armies; and hence, when the morning of the fifth day dawned, fully one-half of the non-combatant population was still in the city.