[11] *Circular to district attorneys.
September 1, 1815.
Sir: Information having reached this Department that sundry persons, citizens and others, within the limits of the State of Louisiana, are engaged in preparing the means of a military expedition against the dominions of Spain, I have to request, in the name of the President, that you will keep your official attention awake to the subject. Such conduct, violating alike the duties of neutrality and an express statute of Congress, merits the severest reprehension, and you will be pleased not to fail to prosecute, with due vigilance and to the full extent of the law, all persons implicated, against whom there appears, or can be obtained, any sufficient evidence of guilt.
I have the honor to be, &c.,
John Dick, Esq.,
District Attorney of the United States for
Louisiana.
(Similar letters to the above were written to the district attorneys of East and West Tennessee and Kentucky.)