Whereas satisfactory evidence has lately been received by me through an official communication of Senor Don Luis Molina, envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the Republic of Nicaragua, under date of the 28th of November, 1863, that no other or higher duties of tonnage and impost have been imposed or levied since the 2d day of August, 1838, in the ports of Nicaragua upon vessels wholly belonging to citizens of the United States and upon the produce, manufactures, or merchandise imported in the same from the United States and from any foreign country whatever than are levied on Nicaraguan ships and their cargoes in the same ports under like circumstances: 

Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that so much of the several acts imposing discriminating duties of tonnage and impost within the United States are and shall be suspended and discontinued so far as respects the vessels of Nicaragua and the produce, manufactures, and merchandise imported into the United States in the same from the dominions of Nicaragua and from any other foreign country whatever, the said suspension to take effect from the day above mentioned and to continue thenceforward so long as the reciprocal exemption of the vessels of the United States and the produce, manufactures, and merchandise imported into the dominions of Nicaragua in the same, as aforesaid, shall be continued on the part of the Government of Nicaragua.

[SEAL.]

Given under my hand at the city of Washington, the 16th day of December, A.D. 1863, and the eighty-eighth of the Independence of the United States.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President: 
  WILLIAM H. SEWARD,
    Secretary of State.

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas by my proclamation of the 19th of April, 1861, the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were, for reasons therein set forth, placed under blockade; and

Whereas the port of Brownsville, in the district of Brazos Santiago, in the State of Texas, has since been blockaded, but as the blockade of said port may now be safely relaxed with advantage to the interests of commerce: 

Now, therefore, be it known that I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, pursuant to the authority in me vested by the fifth section of the act of Congress approved on the 13th of July, 1861, entitled “An act further to provide for the collection of duties on imports and for other purposes,” do hereby declare that the blockade of the said port of Brownsville shall so far cease and determine from and after this date that commercial intercourse with said port, except as to persons, things, and information hereinafter specified, may from this date be carried on subject