HON. WILLIAM M. GWIN, HON. CALHOUN BEN HAM, AND ROBERT J. BRENT, ESQ. ARBITRARY arrests and imprisonments, during the late civil war, were more the offspring of political animosities than any service that could be rendered, thereby, for the good of the state. It was not pro bono publico, but "I will have vengeance," saith Mr. Secretary Seward. A more unscrupulous, vindictive, and revengeful Secretary, perhaps, never occupied a similar position. Lord North was a model in comparison. Jeffreys, ir a different sphere, perhaps an equal, when sustained by arbi trary power. Jeffreys and Seward-both moral cowards. Secretary Seward, when surrounded by power, was as cold and "irrepressible" as the frigid climate of Auburn in January-not, indeed, "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain; And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed". which the warm-hearted, genial Goldsmith so pathetically tells us about; but the Auburn where Mr. Seward residesand where he recently told the American people "great crimes had been committed in the name of liberty," and where his future reflections will be refreshed by the recollections of the past. From the facts at our command, we cannot give a better history of the arrest, imprisonment, and release of the abovenamed gentlemen, than that by Mr. Geo. D. Prentice, of the "Louisville Journal." Mr. Prentice says: "I have some peculiar reminiscences connected with Fort Lafayette. In 1861, three distinguished gentlemen - Hon. William M. Gwin, who had served many years with distinction in the Senate of the United States; Hon. Calhoun Benham, who has been United States District Attorney in California; and Mr. Brent, who had been a prominent lawyer in Baltimore, and was then a very prominent lawyer of California — embarked on a steamer for some point in the East. General Sumner was on board the same steamer. When she was near the Isthmus, the General made them his prisoners. He simply deigned to tell them that he arrested them on suspicion that they were intending to fight against the United States, a suspicion perfectly preposterous in the case of Dr. Gwin, who was an infirm old man of about seventy years. When they demanded the ground of his suspicion, he only answered that he entertained it, and was only responsible to the Federal Government; and Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, ordered them, without an interview, to Fort Lafayette. "As one of these prisoners was my near and very dear rela tive, I hastened to Washington to procure their release. I had written and telegraphed earnestly to the President for the release of Governor Morehead, Mr. Durrett, and others; but when a member of my own family was a victim of oppression and tyranny, I felt that I should give my personal presence to the effort for deliverance. I arrived at the capital long after dark, and called immediately upon Mr. Lincoln. He received me with the greatest cordiality and geuiality, although he gently intimated that he rather thought that I had been a little unjust to him. I asked him for the discharge of the three Fort Lafayette prisoners - Gwin, Benham, and Brent. He inquired what were the charges against them. Of course, I told him that I didn't know, and suggested whether it wasn't more his business than ours to know. He answered, 'Well, I don't know about these things, but i am disposed to do what I can for you, and will give you a letter to Seward.' I took the letter, and called at Mr. Seward's office the next morning. The distinguished Secretary received me with his accustomed amenity, but, in regard to the matter in hand, talked quite diplomatically. It was about my first experience of a regular diplomatist's conversation. I didn't much admire or understand it. Mr. Seward invited me to take tea with him in the evening. I did. After tea, I renewed my application for the release of my friends, and argued the matter as well as I could. He had only this reply to make: 'I am considering the matter, and I shall be very glad to see you at tea, or breakfast, or dinner, every day, and we will talk the subject over.' 6 "One evening, when I had been about four days in Washington, I ventured to urge my request very strongly upon the Secretary, and he said: 'Call at my office to-morrow morning, at half-past ten o'clock, and I will give you an order for the release of your friends.' Of course, I was punctual to the minute. Fred,' said he, addressing his son, and Assistant Secretary, 'give Mr. Prentice the document I directed you to make out.' The Assistant Secretary placed it in my hands. I read it. It was not an order for the discharge of the victims. It was only an order that I should have the privilege of seeing them in their prison, when I pleased. Why, Mr. Seward, this is not what you promised me yesterday.' 'No, it is not, but I specially desire that you go to New York and talk with your friends, and ascertain their feelings and intentions, and report to me.' I told him, in terms a little brief, possibly, that he certainly could not expect me to visit my friends in prison, and enter into a conversation with them as a Government spy. 'Well,' he said, 'do me the favor to go and see them, and write to me as you like.' I said, 'Yes.' I went, and wrote to him every day as strongly as I could in favor of the release of the prisoners. My first three letters were unanswered. In reply to the fourth, I received a dispatch saying that my friends were paroled to Washington for explanation.' Of course I considered that dispatch as implying a discharge. I went immediately with Dr. Gwin's wife and daughters to Fort Lafayette, exhibited the order to the prisoners, and advised them to proceed to Washington immediately. 'Go with us,' said they. I told them that it would be exceedingly incon venient for me to go with them. They were apprehensive of deceit and treachery. Go with us,' said they, or we will not go.' I went with them. On arriving at Washington, I called upon Secretary Seward in their behalf. He re quired that they should either take a certain obnoxious oath, or be remanded to prison. I asked them what they would do, and they agreed that, as there were no charges against them, and as they had committed no crime, they would sooner go back to their Bastile than take any oath. All my appeals to the Secretary were of no avail. "Then my appeal was to President Lincoln. At my second interview with him, he said, 'I will set your friends free. They may go as much at large as any other citizen cf the United States.' I asked him if he would grant them permission to go to Europe. He replied that none of our people had the right to go to Europe without passports, not even himself, and that therefore he could not give passports, but that my friends should be just as free as he or any other man under the Government, to go and come at pleasure. I requested him to put this declaration in writing. He said, 'No, it is a very delicate subject, and Seward will be very mad about it. I will not touch pen to paper in regard to it. Tell your friends what I have told you, and tell them further, that I shall be glad to see them.' All of them, I believe, called upon him and expressed their thanks, though whether thanks were due, under all the circumstances, is, I think, quite a question. "In 1866, Dr. Gwin, who had not taken and could not have taken any part in the war, went from this country to Mexico for his own private purposes, whatever they were, and I have reason to know that they were right and proper. He went and took others with him to make money, but, on account of the miserable condition of Mexican affairs, they failed. Dr. Gwin came back to the United States in the full conciousness of right and the expectation of safety. He had done no wrong to others, and he anticipated no wrong to himself. But upon his arrival within the Federal lines, then kept up for no useful or proper purpose, he was snapped up on not even a pretext, and thrust into Fort Jackson, below New Orleans. Several of his friends were thrown into Fort Jackson with him. They were kept there for many months. They were kept incarcerated, but perhaps not very badly used. I went to Washington to get them discharged, and succeeded, although in opposition to all the diplomatic efforts of Secretary Seward in the opposite direction. And in the interview on that occasion, Mr. Seward had the very intense coolness, fifty degrees below zero, the point of the thermometer where the mercury freezes, to say to my face that he was the man who had discharged my three friends from Fort Lafayette, and given them all their subsequent liberty." Duplicity may deceive the uninitiated. It may do to im pose on the more generous feelings and inclinations of the American people, who have been accustomed to be governed by sincerity and truth; but our Government is too old, though young, to allow a Secretary, however unscrupulous, to continue long to trample upon the rights of the people. In the madness of the hour, force may overcome judgment and integrity, but the quietus is affixed to him who, in the Utopian visions of power, attempts to abridge the liberty of the citizen. Those who are his superiors in statesmanship and justice, will expose the nefarious design, and consign to the shades of a nation's forgetfulness him who, under the garb of "political necessity" or pseudo-philanthropy, wishes to hold the reigns of political permanence at the cost of the liberty of the citizen. "Ye friends of truth, ye statesmen who survey |