The wishes of Messrs. Harris & Morgan, as well as those of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, desiring this temporary change in the schedule time between New Orleans and Vera Cruz, were fully communicated in writing to the department. But in your letter to Messrs. Harris & Morgan of the 3d of November, 1853, you refused to accede to this request; predicating your refusal on our contract made with your predecessor, Mr. Hubbard, for the transmission of a semi-monthly California mail, in which it was not contemplated that the mails sent from New Orleans, via Vera Cruz and Acapulco, should go forward to California by the Panama steamers, but by another line running only between Acapulco and San Francisco; and which contract was awaiting the sanction of Congress. You add: “No such sanction has yet been given by Congress; but apart from this, and without troubling you with my views on the subject, it is simply necessary for me to say, that there can be no recognition by the department of any arrangement by which the additional semi-monthly mail, clearly contemplated by the then Postmaster General, can be dispensed with.” In this there is a positive recognition of our contract or arrangement with Mr. Hubbard as still existing, which the department would not “dispense with,” although it would, while our appropriation was pending, have shortened the time some ten days to and from California by connecting with the Panama steamers touching at Acapulco. When the annual report of the Post Office Department, in December, 1853, was transmitted to Congress, we were led to believe, for the first time, that you had decided virtually to annul our contract, as the estimate for an appropriation under the contract was not sent in by you, but another route for a semi-monthly mail was recommended. You will thus perceive we were not apprized of the intentions of the department until the close of the year 1853, when all our expenses had been incurred, and when, in consequence of the official report, our operations ceased. In conclusion, the department, by its action, having virtually annulled the contract, and having assumed to do that which, by the terms of the contract, was left to Congress, we therefore deem ourselves grievously damaged, and have more than an equitable claim for redress. Very respectfully, your obedient servants, ALBERT C. RAMSEY. E. H. CARMICK. Hon. JAMES CAMPBELL, _Postmaster General_.