Another confounded illegible problematical letter from you. Who is “Cousin Hal” and what is the N.Y.’s Club?

I did get a “friend” in Petersburg and in Norfolk and in Savannah &c., to call at office for me. I’ve no doubt at all your letters have gone up town. Ask Miss Lynch? Mr. Leavenworth I got a letter from this morning. He says he went to Post Office a dozen times for me & is sure nothing ever came there for me.

The devil take you for leaving it all to Raymond. My letters are not fit [203] to be used in that way. He will be confoundedly disappointed if he thinks they will, and I’m afraid will refuse them when he comes to read them. I would have given a hundred dollars if you had attended to my request. It just throws a wet blanket over me and I am afraid to write at all and am regularly flummoxed. You say you fear so & so. Why the devil not look and see and then tell me?

I never talked of assaying North Carolina gold-but Negro labor as applied to gold raising is a subject of interest and in my legitimate way. So is Negro labor applied to farming—to a mountain agriculture. So is the upper country of the South, for my tour to this time has been confined to a comparatively desert country—except a few small planting districts. I have seen nothing but the Atlantic shore of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina & Georgia. On my return I propose to survey upper and interior of all these as well as of the gulf states-and if I am not ruined by it, next year to take the frontier & Southwest slave states. It is but a bird’s eye glance I take, at best.

Am I right or not?

Confound you again, I say-you tell me the same thing over & over and it is evident without the slightest thought.

If you can get time to forget Theodore Parker and Miss Lynch, try to tell me in your next if Henry & Eliza Neill are not in this country. Both you and Father have intimated as much. If so where are they & what are they about?

I am very glad to learn that Mrs. Field has a son and is well. Express my most sincere congratulations. Sorry Mr. Field is no better. I advise him to think of moving South. Florida is the best place for summer. But of that I must talk with him and John extensively when I can.

There is an expression with regard to profligacy among slaves, declaring it to be universal and necessary—even among family servants—in one of my Virginia letters, I should think the 7th, perhaps 9th (8, 10.) I much regret it as I am convinced it is too sweeping and will excite indignation. It refers to slaves employed by northern families at the South. I wish it could be tempered down or removed, only without destroying the argument or breaking the connection.

I think you are most fortunately placed as Boys’ friend. I have already given you my ideas of your dangers and your opportunities. Cultivate confidence & beware of straining for effect. Be true to your reality.

I have a letter to Baine. Who is Bane?

I can’t “go to meetings.”

I can’t write [a] different sort of letters. If Raymond wanted states-manship and generalizations he is at the wrong shop. He can take my wares at his own price, but it will cost me $450 and every minute given to the work.