I have just receivd the enclosed. It seems to me, as it did in the first reading, to be admirably adapted to the purpose and I can make no suggestions [190] for its improvement of the slightest consequence. The expression “the wealth in which she once luxuriated” might perhaps be slightly modified with advantage, as it may be said the mass of the people of the South and especially of those districts in which the want of food is now most severely felt, have never enjoyed wealth, have indeed never been “forehanded” but have usually consumed in each year their previous year’s production. The occasional suffering to which they have consequently been heretofore liable in certain localities, must I am confident, as the natural result of the war and the last unfavorable season, be now general and fearfully aggravated. It is simply from my knowledge of their ordinary condition of poverty and their unfitness and unpreparedness to meet special difficulties such as they must have had to deal with of late, that leads me to take for granted without special enquiry, the truth of the most distressing reports that come to us. Judging from my own experience, therefore, I think the appeal would be more forcible perhaps if the idea of abounding wealth among the people were not emphasized.

I write in the presumption that the appeal is about to be printed as a handbill or circular.