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Rh no such paragraph. There is nothing in the cartel which contains any such doctrine, or which favors it. Every provision is against it. Your own and my practice have been opposed to it. I again say to you what I have already stated in my communication of the 17th instant, that your assent is not needed to the declared exchange, and I shall not notify the officers, whom I have declared exchanged, as you request. I have allowed you to declare exchanges when the number of prisoners in our hands has been the greater. This has been the case from the day when we first met in the fall of last year, to the capture at Vicksburg. Now, when you have scarcely received official advices of your superiority in prisoners, you boast of the fact, and declare that I cannot give an equivalent for the general officers I have declared exchanged. The point you make is worth nothing, even as you have stated it. You know we have no lieutenant-generals or major-generals of yours in our hands. For that reason I have declared them exchanged in privates or inferior officers at your election. I had the right, under the cartel, to make the choice myself, but I preferred that you should do it, and therefore, I gave you the notification which I did. If, at any time, you present officers for exchange who have been paroled, and we have no officers of similar rank on parole, you can declare their exchange in privates. If, at this time, you have any officers of the rank I have declared exchanged, or of any other rank, or if you have any particular organization of privates or non-commissioned officers whom you wish exchanged, you have only to state such fact and your selection will be approved. If you hold the paroles of our officers of any rank as you state, you have only to present them, and whatever is in our hands, whether on parole or in captivity, will be freely given in exchange for them. You say you have again and again invited me to a return to the cartel. Now that our official connection is being terminated, I say to you in the fear of God—and I appeal to Him for the truth of the declaration—that there has been no single moment, from the time when we were first brought together in connection with the matter of exchange to the present hour, during which there has not been an open and notorious violation of the cartel by your authorities. Officers and men, numbering over hundreds, have been, during your whole connection with the cartel, kept in cruel confinement, sometimes in irons, or doomed to cells, without charges or trial. They are in prison now, unless God, in His mercy, has released them. In our parting moments, let me do you the justice to say that I do not believe it is so much your fault as that of your authorities. Nay more, I believe your removal from your position has been owing to the personal efforts you have made for a faithful observance, not only of the cartel, but of humanity in the conduct of the war.

Again and again have I importuned you to tell me of one officer or man now held in confinement by us, who was declared exchanged. You have, to those appeals, furnished one—Spencer