heir quarrels and troubles, but are among the most
formidable evils, to a serious mind, in their condition. You now
and then see a moody and sullen looking negro, and if you inquire
into the cause of his gloom, you will be informed that he has
been a fugitive, that he has lived long in the woods upon
thieving, that he has been arrested and whipped, and is waiting
his opportunity to escape again. Judging of their condition from
their countenances, and from their unthinking merriment, I should
think them the happiest people here, and in general, far more so
than their masters.

It is a most formidable part of the evil of slavery, that the
race is far more prolific than that of the whites, and that their
population advances in a greater ratio. They are at present in
this region more numerous than the whites, and this inequality is
increasing every day. Thinking people here, who look to the
condition of their posterity, are appalled at this view of
things, and admit that something must be done to avert the
certain final consequences of such an order of things. I remark,
in concluding this subject, that the people here always have
under their eye the condition and character of the free blacks.
It tends to confirm them in their opinions upon the subject. The
slaves are addicted to theft, but the free blacks much more so.
They, poor wretches, have had the privilege of getting drunk, and
they avail themselves of it. The heaviest scourge of New Orleans
is its multitudes of free black and coloured people. They wallow
in debauchery, are quarrelsome and saucy, and commit crimes, in
proportion to the slaves, as a hundred to one.

The population of Louisiana is supposed to be, at present,
between two and three hundred thousand. After New Orleans, the
most populous parishes are Baton Rouge, Feliciana, Rapide, and
Natchitoches. Parishes in this region are civil divisions,
derived from the former regime. They are often larger than our
counties at the North. This country, from the character of its
soil, cannot have a dense population, until the swamps are
drained. The population, except the sparse inhabitants of the
pine woods, is fixed along the margin of the water courses, and
the greater part of the planters can convey their produce
immediately on boa