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Rh of humanity, but rather by what occurred in the British House of Lords, on the 16th of May, soon after Mr. Lincoln's proclamation, declaring the Confederate privateers pirates, reached that country.

On this subject the Earl of Derby said:

Up to this time there had been no formal cartel for the exchange of prisoners, and the policy of the Washington Government seemed to be that they would not treat with "Rebels" in any way which would acknowledge them as "belligerents." But many prisoners on both sides were released on parole, and a proposition made in the Confederate Congress to return the Federal prisoners taken at First Manassas, without any formality whatever would doubtless have prevailed but for the difficulty in reference to the crew of the Savannah.

The pressure upon the Federal Government by friends of the prisoners became so great that they were finally induced to enter into a cartel for the exchange of prisoners on the very basis that the Confederates had offered in the beginning. The Confederate General Howell Cobb and the Federal General Wool entered into this arrangement on the 14th of February, 1862—the only unadjusted point being that General Wool was unwilling that each party should agree to pay the expenses of transporting their prisoners to the frontier, and this he promised to refer to his Government.