The North to manufacture, and the
South to produce, would make the strongest nation_. But, if we separate,
we shall try to do more in Virginia than we do now. We shall make mills
on our streams."

His language was chiefly Saxon monosyllables.

"The climate is not as severe, the nights are not as long with us as
with you. I think we can do well at manufacturing in Virginia. The
Chesapeake Bay and our rivers should aid commerce. As for the slaves,
I think there is little danger of any trouble. There may be some," he
said, with a frankness that surprised us slightly, but in the same
moderate, honest way, his hands clasped upon his breast, and the
extended feet rubbing together slowly, "in the Cotton States, where they
are very thick together; but I think that there is very little danger in
Virginia. The way they take to rise in never shows much skill. The last
time they rose in our State, I think the attempt was brought on by some
sign in an eclipse of the moon."

Nearly all that passed of political interest is contained in the
foregoing sentences, except one honest reply to a question concerning
his opinion of the probability of the North's attempting coercion.

"If only three States go out, they may coerce," said Mr. Hunter; "but if
fifteen go, I guess they won't try."

At the present period of the Rebellion, this indication of the
anticipations of its leaders in engaging in it must be of interest.

It must be understood that the writer and his companions presented
themselves simply as students, with no fixed exclusive predilections for
either of the public parties in politics,--which, in the writer's case
at least, was certainly a statement wholly true,--and that this evident
freedom from political bias secured perhaps an unusual share of the
confidence of the Southern Senators. It will be remembered, also, that
in every conversation, however startling the revelation of criminal
purpose or absurd motive, the manner of these Senators was always
totally devoid of any approach to that vulgar intellectual levity which
too often, in treating of public affairs, painfully characterizes
the fifth-rate men whom the North sometimes chooses to make its
representatives. The manner of the Southern leaders was to us a
sufficient proof of their sincerity.

* * * * *

At the house of the Honorable Jefferson Davis, now in the world's
gaze President of the then nascent Confederacy, the writer, in