graphic despatch from Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War, without complaint, warrant, or form of law, hurried off, more than a thousand miles, to a foreign State, and incarcerated within the dark walls of an American Bastile. As it will be regarded a matter of curiosity in American history to know how these arrests were made, and how citizens, not charged with an offence, were treated under the brutal system adopted during Mr. Lincoln's Administration, we have been at some trouble to learn the facts, and here present them.

Mr. Johnson's case is not dissimilar to the general history of many others. He was conveyed from his home, in Galena, Illinois, to Chicago, where he overtook Mr. Sheean, who had been arrested only a few hours before him; thence, in company with that gentleman, he was transported to New York city, and handed over, at Elm Street, to the tender care of Kennedy, Superintendent of Police. This man was the wellknown jailer of Mrs. Isabel Brinsmade, who was confined, for forty days, in a dungeon in one of the station-houses in New York, without any one knowing where she was, and without any charge against her. Mr. Johnson was confined in what was known as the "Inner Temple," a low, dirty, ill. ventilated room, partially under ground. Here, for the first time, the prisoner began to realize what it meant to be a "prisoner of state."

From there, he was conveyed, closely guarded, to Fort Hamilton, where Lieutenant-Colonel Burke, a gruff old soldier, on seeing the despatch from Stanton to incarcerate him in Fort Lafayette, ordered out a file of soldiers under an officer, by whom he was escorted to the vessel which carried him to the Fort.

While crossing to the Fort, he could observe the dark, dungeon-like walls of the octagonal-shaped Fort, black, frowning, and solitary, arising from

"those hidden rocks, where sleep The channelled waters, dark and deep."

The thought came hurriedly to his mind, Can this be re publican America? or are we the victims of French and Austrian despotism? When a prisoner entered the portals of this Fort, he was dead, so far, at least, as the outside world was concerned, and soon found himself subject to the unbri Hled caprice of a "despotism that knew no bounds."

On entering the Fort, Mr. Johnson was taken to the office of the Commandant, who, on learning his name and resi dence, entered them in a register, without preface or apology He then, with the sangfroid of a highwayman, demanded his watch, money, gold pencil, studs, finger-rings, medicines, trunk-key, etc., as unnecessary to be retained by the prisoner Mr. Johnson says, "I handed them over reluctantly to a man of whom I had formed a bad opinion." He was then taken to an anteroom, accompanied by a sergeant and two soldiers, to manage him, should he prove refractory. Here he was divested of his clothing, and searched. They were rewarded with finding in his breast-pocket two percussion-caps, which were, no doubt, laid before the eyes of the astonished Lieutenant as dangerous matter; perhaps, diminutive torpedoes by which the massive foundations of the Fort were to be blown to atoms. After this was accomplished, he was dis missed, and told that his trunk would be sent to him when examined.

He was then taken to Battery No. 6, a long room on a leve. with the ground, and having a brick floor. Here he was furnished with an iron stretcher, a mattress, and a blanket. This room contained five heavy cannons, mounted on carriages, ranged side by side, and each pointed through a porthole, so as to command the channel. The place was filthy, damp, and dark-the air fetid and unwholesome. He found in it some forty-seven prisoners, crammed together among the gun-carriages, and as uncomfortable as they could be made. These persons soon instructed him in the discipline of the Fort, which consisted of every petty annoyance that could be invented to render the situation of a prisoner disagreeable, and, if possible, to break down bis spirit, destroy

his manhood, and cause him to accept such terms as were prescribed by the Administration as the price of liberty.

The Bastile, like death, brings to an equality all it swal lows up. The undaunted patriot, guilty of no crime but that of maintaining the rights of a freeman, and who dared to speak in opposition to the Administration, is treated with more severity than the wretch, who would betray his country for gold. Here were men wearing the insignia and uniform of an honorable service, degraded to be the tools of a despotism that has scarcely a parallel even in the Bustile of France. They were sensible of the shameful and cowardly service imposed, and sought to justify themselves as the agents of a lawful power, saying that "they simply obeyed orders." They had given themselves up as willing instruments of outrage and wrong, and felt that an ignomin ious punishment would be a just reward for their compliance Had they not lost all self-respect, and submitted themselves, as mere machines to do the will of arbitrary power, they would have felt the dishonor of their work sticking as close to thein as did "the poisoned shirt of Nessus to the back of Hercules."

Mr. Johnson was subjected to the rigor and petty tyranny of a shoulder-strapped turnkey, who compelled the prisoners to submit to the taunts and insults of the sentinels put over them, night and day. The prisoners were reprimanded or punished if they retorted, or resented the taunts or acts of the soldiery, some of whom took every occasion to insult them. They were compelled to go to the sally-port and ask permission of the Sergeant to go to the other prisoners' quarters, or to draw a bucket of water out of the cistern at their own door. The same permission was required to get coal or wood. They were compelled, also, to stay in their apartments, or within a space of fifteen feet square in front of them, except for a few moments, morning and evening, when all the prisoners, except Soulé, Mazzaran, and Thomas, were allowed to mingle together in the open court, a space about thirty yards square, within the Fort. This was all the exercise allowed.

The wives and friends of the inmates who came to visit them, after first going to Washington, and, as a great favor, obtaining a pass from Secretary Stanton to enter, were required to hold their conversations, which were limited to an hour. in the presence of the Commandant. At the close of these interviews, a guard marched the prisoners back to their quarters, and the visitors were set on shore. The interviews were duly noted and reported to Washington, with such comments as were thought proper and necessary.

At sunset, the prisoners were compelled to "get into their holes." The doors were locked upon them, while the window on the same side, large enough to admit a man's body, was left open. They were not allowed to talk or have a light after 9 o'clock P.M.; and, as Mr. Johnson was informed, the sentinel had, a short time before he arrived, fired through this window on the prisoners for conversing, in disobedience of orders. They were not allowed conversation with the soldiers, and on one occasion, when one of the latter was arranging the window, or fire-grate, an officer with an armed sentinel stood by for hours, to prevent communication. When a ship was fired on, in order to make her return and report to the revenue-cutter, they were all locked up; and on one occasion, when the British ship "Dispatch" refuse to return, but anchored under the guns of the Fort, they were kept confined for forty-eight hours. They were also locked up when those in solitary confinement were taken into the presence of the Commandant.

There was confined in one of the cells of Fort Lafayette,

His friends, and prisoners, called He treated the

2 poor prisoner from Baltimore. He was a "political prisoner," and manifested symptoms of insanity. some of the physicians who were among the Lieutenant Wood's attention to the case. statement with contemptuous indifference at the time; but a few days afterward, the prisoner was sent to the guard-house. Instead of being sent instantly to the asylum, he was kept in the guard-house, and in double irons.

His cell was darkened, a sentry marched night and day before his prison-door; and he was permitted no intercourse, not even to see the other prisoners or friends. Surrounded by strange soldiers, he was, at times, apparently in an agony of dread. His shrieks were fearful, and one dark night, when he imagined he was about to be murdered, his screams were painfully startling to hear. In some of these parox ysms, he was actually gagged by the soldiers. So strict was his confinement, that when an aged and widowed mother, who for months had been seeking to obtain an interview with her son, at last, having obtained it, came one Sabbathday to visit him, he was taken from his dungeon to the Commandant's room, in which she was permitted to see him, by a file of soldiers detailed to guard him from his cell; but not before all the other prisoners were locked in their rooms, and a double guard placed in the sally-port. A letter written by one of the prisoners to the counsel of the unfortunate man, in Baltimore, urging the exercise of his influence with the Government, on behalf of the sufferer, was not allowed to reach its destination, although directed to the care of Lieutenant-General Scott. He was detained in the Fort until he became a raving maniac. In this condition, Mr. Stanton's oath of loyalty was administered to him, and he placed on shore as helpless as a child. He would doubtless have perished, had he not been picked up and cared for by strangers. In this instance, a kind Providence, threw in his way Mr. Hopkins and Mrs. Gelston, who cared for him until his friends could cone to tl eir relief, and bear him home to an early grave.

It may be asked, could it be possible, that these things