ight, as the tide was high then. There were one
hundred and forty-nine dipped on this occasion.

The next two letters are largely occupied with the
beginnings of the new working year.

C. P. W. TO E. S. P.

_Jan. 25._ I went down to this nigger-house yesterday morning, called
the people up and told them what they were going to get on their
cotton besides the pay for picking already paid, and then, after
talking over plantation matters a little, got their acres for next
year. They seemed "well satisfy" with the additional payment, fully
appreciated the pay according to crop and according to acre combined,
and started on this year's work with "good encourage." I suppose Mr.
Forbes and you are two bricks, serving as the beginning of a good
foundation for these people's prosperity.

FROM W. C. G.

_Captain Oliver Fripp's, Jan. 26._ We are very busy now on the
plantations. A new system of labor to inaugurate,--lands to
allot,--grumbling to pacify and idleness to check,--my hands--with
nine plantations--are perfectly overrunning. The worst of it is that
my people are in pretty bad disposition,--the new system has been
received with joy and thankfulness in most parts of the island,--here
with suspicion, grumbling, and aversion. How far it is the fault of
their past and present superintendents, I cannot tell,--it has been
known as a hard district ever since we came here,--but it must be our
failing in some degree. I devoutly hope that by the middle of February
it will be over as far as I am concerned. It is a little remarkable
that while the Abolitionists and negroes' friends up North are
striving so hard to have the sale postponed,[101] we superintendents,
without exception that I have heard, are very desirous to have it
effected. This "superintendence" is a most unsatisfactory
system,--temporary and unprogressive in every element. Of course,
nothing else could well have been tried this last year, and perhaps
the time has not yet come to abandon it. But we all think it has. I am
satisfied that the sooner the people are thrown upon themselves, the
speedier will be their salvation. Let all the natural laws of labor,
wages, competition, etc., come into play,--and the sooner will habits
of responsibility, industry, self-dependence, and manliness be
developed. Very little, very little, should be given them: now, in the
first moments of freedom, is the time to influence their notion of it.
To receive has been thei