States no power to summon to the aid of
the State the military force of the United States unless an application
shall be made by the legislature if in session; and that the State
executive can not make such application except when the legislature can
not be convened. (See act of Congress, February 28, 1795.)

I presume that your excellency has been led into the error of making
this application (the legislature of the State being in session at the
date of your dispatch) from a misapprehension of the true import of my
letter of 7th May last. I lose no time in correcting such
misapprehension if it exist.

Should the legislature of Rhode Island deem it proper to make a
similar application to that addressed to me by your excellency, their
communication shall receive all the attention which will be justly due
to the high source from which such application shall emanate.

I renew to your excellency assurances of high consideration.

J. TYLER.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., _June 23, 1842_.

Hon. JOHN C. SPENCER,

_Secretary of War_.

SIR: I addressed you yesterday afternoon in great haste, that my letter
might go by the mail (then about being closed), to inform you of the
sudden change in the aspect of affairs in this State, and also to inform
you that I should be this morning at Governors Island, New York.

At the urgent solicitation of Governor King, who crossed over from
Newport to Stonington to intercept me on the route, I returned last
night to this place from Stonington, having proceeded so far on my way
to New York.

In addition to what I stated in my letter yesterday, I learn from
Governor King (who has just called on me) that four citizens of this
city who had gone to Chepachet to ascertain what was going on there were
arrested as spies by the insurgents, bound, and sent last night to
Woonsocket, where they were confined when his informer left there at
8 o'clock this morning; also that martial law had been proclaimed by the
insurgents at Woonsocket and Chepachet, and no one was allowed to enter
or depart from either place without permission.

The citizens of this city are in a state of intense excitement.

I shall return to-morrow to Newport to await any instructions you may be
pleased to favor me with.

I have the honor to be, sir, with great respect, your obedient servant,

JAS. BANKHEAD,
_Colonel Second Regiment Artillery_.

PROVIDENCE, R.I., _June 23, 1842_.

Brigadier-General R. JONES,

_Adj