While serving as justice of the supreme court, and when his term in that court was about to expire, he was offered, by the governor, the appointment of city judge. This would have made him judge of the court of general sessions, the principal criminal court of the city, having jurisdiction of cases of the highest class. This appointment he did not accept. In 1858 he was appointed, by the governor of New York, commissioner of quarantine, to succeed Ex-Gov. Horatio Seymour, with authority to abolish the then present station and erect a new one elsewhere, as the commission might decide. His associates in this commission were men of the highest character, and the commission was one of importance at the time,--just after the quarantine buildings had been destroyed by a terror-stricken mob, and the wildest fears that contagious diseases might be transmitted from such a station had taken possession of many minds. In 1862 he was appointed, by Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, judge of the United States Provisional Court for the state of Louisiana. This court was called into existence by the necessities of the federal government in respect to its foreign relations, after the conquest of New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana by the army of the United States, during the late war of the rebellion, and while that territory was held in military occupation. A large part of the population of New Orleans and Louisiana was persons of foreign birth and allegiance, having claims on their respective governments for the protection of their rights. Those governments, when appealed to, made demands through their ministers, resident at Washington, on the government of the United States, and the number and importance of these claims had become so great that the state department was much embarrassed by them. Mr. Seward, secretary of state, had been more than half his time since the conquest occupied by them, and they had, in some instances, assumed such proportions as to threaten seriously the relations of the government with foreign powers. In this condition of things it was resolved to constitute a tribunal which should be empowered to decide all these questions, and keep them from the department. Accordingly, the government resolved to establish a court at New Orleans, which should have power to hear and determine every question which could possibly arise out of human transactions, and to make the decisions of that court conclusive of the rights of all parties. To effect that purpose, the following order was made by the President of the United States:-- EXECUTIVE ORDER, ESTABLISHING A PROVISIONAL COURT IN LOUISIANA. EXECUTIVE MANSION, } WASHINGTON, October 20, 1862. }