The next day, promulgated by Commodore M. C. Perry, and signed by the then hiatus secretary of the navy, Mr. Swallow-Barn Kennedy, was read on the quarter-deck, General Order, No. 1, which, it is said, had a precedent in the expedition of Lieut. Wilkes, but which was as bad as its precedent, and equally unjust, being based upon the ridiculous premise that because a government may have claim upon your thews and sinews, or your mental aptitude in the line of your profession, that it likewise has property in the product of your brain, no matter in what other way, out of your calling, it may be exercised. This order was violated subsequently in China, in the grossest way, with the tacit consent of the commander-in-chief who first issued it; as if the prominent, in rule, or law, under our government were any more exempt from its provisions, than that the humblest are not beneath its control. I say in the grossest way, because he permitted, if he did not personally supervise, the preparation of an account of the movements of his squadron, for the colonial English newspapers at Hong-Kong, in preference to our own; papers too, whose columns at other times displayed the village squabbling, which marked the thunders, of the “Eatanswill Gazette” in Pickwick, in response to the shafts of “The Independent.” The following is the order:— “_U. S. Steam Frigate, Mississippi_, “_At Sea, December 21st, 1852_. “GENERAL ORDER, NO. 1 “In promulgating the subjoined extract from the instructions addressed to me by the honorable secretary of the navy, and bearing date 13th ult., I have to enjoin upon all officers and other persons attached to the vessels under my command, or in any other way connected with the squadron, a most rigid adherence to all the requirements of said order. “Whatever notes or drawings may be prepared by the officers or other persons before mentioned, whether by special order, or by their own volition, will be endorsed by the respective parties, and transmitted through the captain of the fleet to the commander-in-chief, who will in due time lodge them at the navy department, from whence they may be reclaimed as it may suit the convenience of the government. “All arms, curiosities, and specimens of natural history, are also to become the property of the United States, unless voluntarily relinquished by the commander-in-chief. “M. C. PERRY, “_Commander of the U. S. Naval Forces_, “_Stationed in the East India, China, and Japan Seas_.” [EXTRACT.]