and without them it was not in my power to either controvert or admit the information you had received under these circumstances. I think you must be sensible, Sir, that your conclusion from my silence, that I regard the fact as proved, was a very necessary one. New inquiries at that time could not have prevented the departure of the privateer, or the capture of the Rochampton; for the privateer had then been out some time. The Rochampton was already taken, and was arriving at Baltimore, which she did about the day of the date of your letter. After her arrival, new witnesses had come forward to prove that the Industry had made some military equipments at Baltimore before her cruise. The affidavits taken by the British vice-consul, are dated about nine or ten days after the date of your letter and arrival of the Rochampton, and we have only to lament that those witnesses had not given their information to the vice-consul when Mr. Killy engaged his aid in the enquiries he was making, and when it would have had the effect of our detaining the privateer till she should have reduced herself to the condition in which she was when she arrived in our ports, if she had really added anything to her then force. But supposing the testimony just and full, (though taken _ex parte_, and not under the legal sanction of our oath,) yet the Governor's refusal to restore the prize was perfectly proper, for, as has been before observed, restitution has never been made by the Executive, nor can be made on a mere clandestine alteration or augmentation of military equipments, which was all that the new testimony tended to prove. Notwithstanding, however, that the President thought the information obtained on the former occasion had cleared this privateer from any well-grounded cause of arrest, yet that which you have now offered opens the possibility that the former was defective. He has therefore desired new inquiry to be made before a magistrate legally authorized to administer an oath, and indifferent to both parties; and should the result be that the vessel did really make any military equipments in our ports, instructions will be given to reduce her to her original condition, whenever she shall again come into our ports.