180 JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS [June 6,

detachment, announced that he acted under the order of the
commander of the military force of the State of Virginia,
then stationed at Harper's Ferry—that the undersigned imme-
diately protested against the act, claimed that he was a citi
zen of Maryland, and in no way amenable to the authorities
of Virginia, and refused to surrunder his property, then in
Maryland, to any authority of Virginia, but stated that he
was alwas ready to obey the authorities of his own State of
Maryland—that the officer in command stated that the com-
mander at Harper's Ferry was in correspondence with your
Excellency, and he believed had authority from your Excel-
lency for the seizure then being made—that the under signed,
refusing to surrender his property unless the orders of your
Excellency were inspected by him, a soldier was dispatched to
Harper's Ferry to procure said orders, and in the meantime,
the boat and cargo were taken possession of, and on the rep-
resentation of the undersigned, that if said boat and cargo
were detained until the arrival of said messenger, the water
would be so much lowered that he would not be able to pro-
ceed to Georgetown, in case the order of your Excellency, au-
thorizing said seizure, should not be produced—the officer in
command determined that the undersigned should conduct
said boat to the Point of Rocks, a distance of six miles,
guarded by his detachment of men, and should there await
the return of said messenger. During the evening the mes-
senger returned without any orders of your Excellency, but
accompanied and followed during the night by three several
additional detachments, numbering in all, over eighty men,
and the whole force, under the command of Col. Baylor of
the Virginia forces, took forcible possession of the mules,
boat and grain, in defiance of the protest of the undersigned
and with the repeated threats to shoot him, unloaded the
grain, sent part of it over the bridge at Point of Rocks into
Virginia, and other portions of it had been transferred to cars
on the Balt, and Ohio Railroad and taken to Harper's Fer-
ry. All the grain in the boat was apporpriated by the mili-
tary, and the boat, mules and hands were left in their hands,
when the undersigned came to Frederick to seek redress—
and on his return, found that the hands with said boat, had
been permitted by the military to return with the boat and
mules to Berlin.

The cargo of said boat, seized by said military and appro-
piated to its own use, consisted of two thousand bushels of
oats, of which the selling price at Georgetown, on the 26th
day of April, the day on which said boat would have arrived
and said cargo been ready for sale, was seventy-five cents per