Governor on the Subject:--

Confederate States' steamer Sumter, Port Royal, Nov. 12th, 1861.

SIR,--In the interview which I had the honour to hold with your
Excellency on Saturday last, the 9th inst. I understood your Excellency
to assent to the proposition that I might go into the market at St.
Pierre, and purchase such supplies as I might stand in need of, coal
included. The precise position assumed by your Excellency was, that you
would neither assent nor prohibit. On the faith of this understanding, I
despatched one of my lieutenants and my paymaster to St. Pierre, to make
the necessary purchases, and they have returned and reported to me that
they found an abundance of coal in the market, and at reasonable rates,
and that the owners of it are anxious to supply me with it, but that
your Collector of the Customs had _interposed_, and prohibited the
merchants from selling or delivering it to me. For the information of
your Excellency, I will here state that I have been permitted to coal in
all the ports I have heretofore visited, except only at the French port
of Cayenne, where I was informed that there was no coal in the market,
and where it was insisted that I should undergo a quarantine of five
days before communicating with the town. As it was not convenient for me
to undergo this quarantine, I sailed immediately. I have coaled at
Cienfuegos in the island of Cuba, at Curacao, at Trinidad, at
Paramaribo, and at Maranham. It appears that Spain, Holland, England and
Brazil have each deemed it consistent with their neutrality in the
present war to permit me freely to supply myself with coal. Am I to
understand from the action of your officers at St. Pierre that you have
withdrawn the implied assent given me on Saturday last, and that France,
through your agency, adopts a different and less friendly, rule? Will
France drive a vessel of war of the Confederate States from one of her
islands to a British island to procure coal? And if she does this, on
what principle will she do it? It is a well-settled rule of
international law, that belligerent cruisers have the right to enter
freely into neutral ports for the purpose of replenishing their stores
of provisions, or replacing a lost mast or spar; and why should not they
be equally permitted to receive on board coal?

Coal is no more necessary to the locomotion of a steamer than is a mast
or spar to a sail-ship; it is no more necessary to a cruiser than
provisions. With