_June 10th._--News of firing the City of New Orleans, in order to effect a rescue of the pirates, reached this city this day. We hear, also, of the Choctaw Indians fighting, 150 opposed to 150, to avenge the death of an old woman, killed for a witch. They fought until both sides, with the exception of ten or twelve, were all killed.[151] A man was taken and nearly killed, last week, disguised as the devil, in the act of extorting 150 dollars from a farmer. He was dressed, and spit fire and brimstone, like a proper devil. He is now in prison. A Yankee traveller, lodging for the night, struck this felonious devil to the ground with a club, at the second visit to receive dollars, instead of paper, as at first offered by the farmer for the ransom of his body and soul. _12th._--I met again Mr. Perry from Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He states that the land and farms there are the best in America; the average of wheat being about eighteen bushels an acre. The best land is to be bought occasionally at fifty dollars an acre, with improvements which have cost all the money; so that the land is given. {431} Here, he says, an English farmer may, as a farmer, find much animal comfort, but no good society; the mass of the farmers and people being vile, dishonest, and without any good principles whatever. All try to rob and wrong you, and each other, and will do it if you associate, or deal in any way with them; and they will do it without any shame, being shameless. An honest man, though rich, must be soon ruined, if he puts confidence in them. "All are tarred with the same brush." The farmers all work. One, worth ten or twelve thousand dollars, brought in to Mr. Perry a waggon load of hay, which he warranted was a ton, though it was only sixteen cwt. Out of a farm of good land, consisting of 500 acres, a farmer does not find above 300 dollars a-year for the purchase of such necessaries as the family need from the store. No money is, therefore, to be made by farming, and the poor live in want all winter, at which time their labour is to be had for victuals only, and now for 25 cents a-day. From sober calculation, he finds that four per cent. is the most that can be obtained from capital employed in agriculture, though six per cent, is the legal interest. He would, a thousand times, rather give five or six guineas an acre rent, for land at Feversham in Kent, than have it here rent-free; for, after paying this heavy rent and taxes and labour, he should have a good living profit in England, where the climate is good, but here, one year {432} wears you out more that seven in England. Grasshoppers too, here, are a plague, destroying every thing, in the pestilential months of August and September. There is no money; all is done by barter.