Custom-House, Collector’s Office,
New Orleans, May 25, 1861.
Hon. L. P. Walker,
Secretary of War, Montgomery, Ala.:
Sir: Your dispatch of yesterday came to hand last night. My purpose was quickly taken, viz, to ask unlimited control of the light schooner W. R. King; to transfer her to a British subject, and clear her under the British flag for Santiago de Cuba or some port in the West Indies in ballast, and dispatch her under sealed orders in charge of a reliable man, to cruise in the line of the course indicated for the Windsor Forest. My arrangements are all made, stores are ordered, my men selected, and one of our most respectable English merchants has agreed for the time being to assume the ownership of the vessel. I now only wait an answer to my dispatch of this morning for authority to act. The schooner by good fortune is now lying at Berwick’s Bay, making her departure more secure and certain. In all this I have acted in consultation with Commander Semmes, in whose good judgment and discretion I have great confidence. I consider this plan safe, expeditious, and economical. The propriety of sending a fast steamer to take the Windsor Forest in tow or to convoy her to some safe port will be the subject of a future letter.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
F. H. HATCH,
Collector.