depicted shoeless and in rags,
contemplating a pair of boots, which the latter suggested had better be
eaten. This caricature excited considerable amusement, especially when
its merits were discussed after Mr Robertson's excellent dinner.

General Beauregard told me he had been educated in the North, and used
to have many friends there, but that _now_ he would sooner submit to the
Emperor of China than return to the Union.

Mr Walter Blake arrived soon after dinner; he had come up from his
plantation on the Combahee river on purpose to see me. He described the
results of the late Yankee raid up that river: forty armed negroes and a
few whites in a miserable steamer were able to destroy and burn an
incalculable amount of property, and carry off hundreds of negroes. Mr
Blake got off very cheap, having only lost twenty-four this time, but he
only saved the remainder by his own personal exertions and
determination. He had now sent all his young males two hundred miles
into the interior for greater safety. He seemed to have a very rough
time of it, living all alone in that pestilential climate. A
neighbouring planter, Mr Lowndes, had lost 290 negroes, and a Mr
Kirkland was totally ruined.

At 7 P.M. Mr Blake and I called at the office of General Ripley, to
whom Mr Blake, notwithstanding that he is an Englishman of nearly sixty
years of age, had served as aide-de-camp during some of the former
operations against Charleston. General Ripley told us that shelling was
still going on vigorously between Morris and Folly Islands, the
Yankees being assisted every now and then by one or more of their
gunboats. The General explained to us that these light-draft armed
vessels--_river-gropers_, as he called them--were indefatigable at
pushing up the numerous creeks, burning and devastating everything. He
said that when he became acquainted with the habits of one of these
"critturs," he arranged an ambuscade for her, and with the assistance of
"his fancy Irishman" (Captain Mitchell), he captured her. This was the
case with the steamer Stono, a short time since, which, having been
caught in this manner by the army, was lost by the navy shortly
afterwards off Sullivan's Island.

News has just been received that Commodore Foote is to succeed Dupont in
the command of the blockading squadron. Most of these officers appeared
to rejoice in this change, as they say Foote is younger, and likely to
show more sport than the venerable Dupont.