the quantity of cotton which the navy Department claims the right to send," I have to say, with all respect to the honorable Secretary of the Navy, if his orders are as alleged, that in my opinion neither by the custom of service, the etiquette subsisting between the military and Navy Departments, by the act of the Confederate Congress regulating foreign exports, &c., or the regulations of the Government, signed by the Secretaries of War and Treasury, has Captain Lynch, of the Navy, anything whatever to do with exercising the authority he claims in the military department of the Cape Fear in this case. I suggest respectfully that the proper course should have been to communicate to the commanding general that there was a necessity to detain a vessel. No vessel cal leave this port without his express authority, if he has any.

Second. Captain Lynch states in his second paragraph, "As long as the vessels were alongside the wharf I did not interfere. " He has no right to interfere at all here with any vessel not belonging to the C. S. Navy,either with the orders of the honorable Secretary of the Navy or without them. If the case were supposable he might with equal propriety have orders to take command of my troops and this department. Again, Captain Lynch well knows, from published orders and from his own experience, that no vessel can pass the forts without special written orders and telegraph dispatches from these headquarters, and he could have communicated to me the desire or orders of his Department to stop the vessel. He did not do it.

Third. He orders Commander Muse to "keep the Hansa near the North Carolina, so as to prevent her slipping off. " This is an absurdity, consequent on his usurpation of authority in assuming to take charge of and move the Hansa under the guns of the North Carolina, he well knowing that not even his own vessels can "slip off" without my authority or permission.

Fourth. He states that "Commander Muse is ordered not to use force except in last resort, but if it be necessary to enforce the order to exercise all the means at his disposal. " The order which he alleges to have received is, in his own words, to "prevent the Alice or Hansa from proceeding to sea;" that is all. When the agent of the Hansa informed me that the Navy commandant had ordered his vessel under the guns of the North Carolina, an unwarrantable proceeding, I sent a guard on board the ship to take her in my own custody. The officer of the guard found her moved already and a guard of marines on board. I demanded their removal. Captain Lynch refused. I have increased my guard, but have forborne to place Captain Lynch under guard himself for conduct subversive of all I am put here for. I have so forborne because, first, I have His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief to appeal to, and because no collision can originate with me,and because also I can afford to have even my authority questioned or defied rather than produce a scandal such as this has nearly been.

Fifth. He concludes his extraordinary note with the singular remark, all things considered, that he hopes I "will not bring on a collision between two branches of a profession which should act in harmony. "

It should be observed that, acting under the orders of the Secretary of War, received on the 6th instant, I had detained the alice on behalf of the Navy Department. No notification whatever had been received by me as to the Hansa until her agent informed me of her improper seizure.