"SIR:--I have to apologize for being thus late in acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Assistant Secretary Hopkirk's letter of the 27th ult., requesting me to furnish Government with such information as I might be able to afford, 'respecting the colored people settled in the Western District;'[89] and beg to assure you that the delay has neither arisen from indifference to the task, nor indisposition to comply with the wishes of Government upon the subject--being one upon which I have long and anxiously bent my most serious reflections,--but owing to bad health, and want of leisure, coupled with the difficulty I have experienced, (without entering into an extended correspondence,) in arriving at any thing like a correct account of the gradual _increase_ of these people, or even a fair estimate of their present numbers. I trust, therefore, that should the particulars furnished by me upon these heads, be found more meager and defective than might be expected, it will either be assigned to these causes, or to others which may be given in the course of the following remarks: and if these remarks, themselves, be found to be drawn up with more of loose unmethodical freedom than official conciseness, I trust that that feature will rather be regarded in their favor than otherwise.