CEDAR PLAINS, HENRICO COUNTY, July 10, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War.

SIR: Miles Ambler, residing quietly on his estate in this county, was, without the shadow of provocation and with characteristic brutality, seized as prisoner by U. S. soldiers acting (so they said) under orders of General Couch, on the 12th of June, 1862 and has been forcibly detained in close confinement up to this date. The above circumstances are notorious and this outrage is respectfully brought to the notice of the honorable Secretary by the distressed wife and daughter of the above-named gentleman.

HARRIET A. AMBLER.

[Indorsement.]

Referred to General Lee. It will be well in the next communication with General McC[lellan] to remonstrate against the practice of seizing private individuals and carrying them off as prisoners.

It is carried on throughout the region within his lines and will lead to assassinations of his troops and retaliation on their side which will greatly enhance the misery of the war without forwarding its object.

G. W. R.

HEADQUARTERS DISTRICT OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
Vicksburg, July 11, 1862.

Honorable G. W. RANDOLPH, Secretary of War, Richmond:

I respectfully communicate the following facts and ask for instructions thereon: Calvin Dickey, who claims to be a British subject and to be traveling as the agent of a commercial house in Saint John's, was arrested on the 8th of July some three miles above this city with a carpet sack going up the river in the direction of he enemy's fleet now lying above this point. He has in his possession a printed passport purporting to be signed by British consul in New York, dated December 23, 1861, requesting that he (D[ickey]), accompanied by his wife, be allowed to pass without let or hindrance, &c. Mr. D'. s wife is not with him, but is as he states in Canada. He avows his business to be to find out how much cotton we have burned, how much on hand and the quantity planted this season, with a view of directing the commercial neither his physiological developments nor his tone and manner of conversation indicate that he is an Englishman, but on the contrary that he is a New York Yankee. He comes from Cairo to Memphis, thence to Grenada, Miss., then to Jackson, Miss., thence to Montgomery Ala., and returned via Yorktown. It is hardly probable that commercial business alone would induce such a trip through a country engaged in war, and especially to Vicksburg, besieged as it was by the enemy; but it frequently happens that innocent men are surrounded by suspicious circumstances. While it is neither the desire nor intention of the military authorities of the Confederate States to interrupt in any way the relations of amity existing between our Government and England or any other foreign power, I am of the opinion that the British consul in New York does not possess the power nor should such be recognized to give passports to enable parties to pass ad libitum to and from our lines from those of the enemy, but that authority so to do must be obtained by application on the part of the consul to the Department at Richmond, the foreign Government holding itself in the mean-