Saturday, February 8th.—­Early this morning the British frigate Warrior came in, and anchored near us.  Sent a Lieutenant on board to make the usual complimentary call.  Awaiting the arrival of a vessel with coal, consigned to Mr. Joyce, who promises to supply us.  My coxswain ran off to-day, and I was pulled off by a drunken crew.

Sunday, February 9th.—­Did not go to church, but remained on board to be present at muster.  Eleven of my vagabonds still on shore.  Some of these, we learn, have gone to the United States Consul, and claimed his protection.  This official has been seducing them off by an emissary.  Wrote to the Governor charging this on the Consul, and wrote also to Captain Warden, asking to be supplied with coal from the Government dockyard.

   C.S.  Steamer Sumter, Bay of Gibraltar,
   Feb. 10, 1862.

Sir,—­I have the honour to state for the information of his Excellency the Governor of Gibraltar, that I am informed and believe that the United States Consul, at this place, has, by means of his emissaries, tampered with, and seduced from their allegiance, several of the crew of my ship who have visited the shore on liberty.  The impropriety and illegality of such conduct is so manifest that I take it for granted his Excellency will interpose his authority for my protection.  Great Britain, having proclaimed a strict neutrality in the war now pending between the United States and Confederate States, is under the obligation, I respectfully suggest, not only to abstain herself, from any un-neutral conduct, but to see that all persons whatsoever within her dominions so abstain.  No act of war, proximate or remote, should be tolerated in her waters by the one belligerent against the other, or by any citizen or resident against either belligerent.  His Excellency will doubtless concur with me in the justice and propriety of the rule thus stated.  To apply this rule to the present case.  Being prompted by motives of humanity to send my crew on shore, in small detachments, for exercise and recreation, after a long confinement on shipboard, my enemy, the United States Consul, sends his agents among them, and by specious pretences persuades them to desert their ship, and take refuge under his Consular flag.  This Has been done in the case of the following seamen:—­Everett Salmon, John G. Jenkins, Thomas F. Kenny, and perhaps others.  Here is an act of war perpetrated against me in neutral territory, and the consular residence, or office, has become quoad hoc a hostile camp.  And this conduct is the more objectionable in that the nationality of most of these men is not American.  His Excellency, as a soldier, knows that no crime is regarded with greater detestation in the present civilized age of the world, than the one here described.  As between contending armies in the field, an offender caught in the perpetration of such an act, would be subjected to instant death; and this, not only because the act