Coal is no more necessary to the locomotion of a steamer than is a mast or spar to a sail-ship; it is no more necessary to a cruiser than provisions.  Without a mast or without provisions a sail-ship could not continue her cruise against the enemy; and yet the neutral permitted her to supply herself with these articles.  Nor can such supplies as these be placed on the ground of humanity.  It would be inhuman, it is true, to permit the crew of a belligerent cruiser to perish in your ports by debarring from access to your markets, from day to day; but it does not follow that it would be inhuman to prevent her from laying in a stock of provisions to enable her to proceed to sea, and continue her cruise against the enemy.  It is not humanity to supply a vessel with a lost mast or a spar, and yet no one doubts that this may be done.  Humanity, then, being out of the question, what possible distinction can your Excellency draw between supplying a vessel with the articles above mentioned, and supplying her with coal?

Without any one of them she would be unable to prosecute her cruise against the enemy—­why, then, will you supply her with a part, and not with the whole?

Without troubling your Excellency further, however, with an argument of the question, I will content myself with stating what I believe to be the true rule of law, and it is this:—­A belligerent ship of war cannot increase her armament or her crew in a neutral port, nor supply herself with ammunition; but with these exceptions she may procure whatever supply she needs.

Although it would be an easy matter for me to run to one of the British, or Danish, or Dutch Islands, I should regret to be obliged to do so, and to have to inform my Government of the reason.  I would not willingly have France adopt a rule which would effectually shut us out of her ports, whilst Holland, Great Britain, Spain, and Brazil admit us freely into theirs.  The rule, prohibiting us from bringing our prizes into neutral ports, operates very harshly upon us, as the weaker naval power of the belligerents, without adding to it one still more harsh, and which has the sanction of neither law nor precedent.  If, however, it be the determination of your Excellency to insist upon my departure without coal, I beg that you will have the goodness to say as much to me in writing.  Your Excellency is the best judge of your instructions, and of what they require of you.

I have the honour to be,

With much consideration,

   Your obedient Servant,
   (Signed) R. SEMMES.

   To his Excellency M. Maussion de Conde,
   l’Amiral et Gouverneur de la Martinique.

We have the gratifying intelligence that Captain Hollins, with some armed steamers, had driven the enemy from the mouth of the Mississippi, sinking the Preble, and driving the other vessels on the bar of the S.W.  Pass.  Mr. Seward has issued a proclamation, desiring the Governors of the Northern States to put their forts, &c., in condition, “as well on the seaboard as on the lakes!” This, with Fremont’s abolition proclamation, will be of great service to us. Quem Deus, &c.  The Governor consents to my coaling at St. Pierre.