ral Hunter did. I didn't have the slightest difficulty in
collecting what I had advanced last September. Every one paid it
cheerfully and thanked us for what they got. This payment was all in
specie. I don't think I shall be refunded in coin, and shall probably
lose the difference, which is now about $120, but I don't grudge them
this. I had rather let it go than see them paid in the paper currency
which they can't read or judge of. It will come to that bye and bye,
however, for I can't get any more coin here, and half of this money
may not come back again into my hands.

General Saxton is striving earnestly to fill up his brigade with
negroes, but finds it very slow work. The people are so well off on
the plantations they don't see why they should go and expose
themselves. Moreover, the way they were treated last summer is not
very attractive to them. Many of their officers abused them, and they
were very generally insulted by every white man they met. It will now
require a good deal of time and very judicious, careful treatment to
get rid of these impressions, particularly as some of the very
officers who abused and maltreated the men are still in General
Saxton's confidence and have places in his new organization.

I took this place[65] more because I want to see the work properly
done and to keep it out of the hands of speculators and sharks than
because I wanted the position. It is a useful position, however, and I
mean to make it so.

A meeting of superintendents[66] is to be held at the Episcopal Church
next Wednesday, which I shall attend, and employ the occasion by
trying to start some more methodical system of employing the negroes
than heretofore.

_Nov. 2._ At the meeting we discussed several methods of dealing with
the corn crop, and several of the superintendents reported that the
negroes had raised hardly enough corn to feed the plantation horses
and mules on when at work. The small yield of cotton was also talked
over and its causes discussed. I do not think it will pay expenses
even on this island. My own plantations will yield about $5000 worth,
when I expected $15,000, a good share of my crop having rotted in the
pods during the rains in the early part of October and another share
having dropped off the plant before filling, probably from lack of
drainage after the heavy July rains.

After returning from the meeting I found a large box of woolen goods
forwarded by Edward Atkinson. I sold $100 wo