are taken care of by sisters or other friends in the absence of their husbands. The more I see of these people the more surprised I am that they should have done so much as they have this year without any definite promise of payment on our part, and with so little acquaintance with us. The course we have been obliged to pursue[43] would not have got an acre planted by Irish laborers. I do not think it the best course, but under the existing confusion it was _only_ one. If we were authorized to say that we could pay a definite sum per one hundred pounds for cotton raised, or a definite sum per month for certain services performed, we might have accomplished much more, but under the present arrangement I doubt if we can do the usual work for next year's crop, _i. e._, in preparing manure. The only men left upon these plantations are the old ones and they are not fit to cut the marsh-grass commonly used for cotton manure. The only way I can get the cornfields ploughed is by asking the drivers to take the ploughs in their own hands, which they do very cheerfully and with good effect, each one ploughing three or four acres per day. I do not think the hands can be expected to work on all summer without further payments of money or some equivalent. I wait rather anxiously for the development of Captain or rather _General_ Saxton's instructions. He has not arrived yet, but is daily expected. The two thousand five hundred yards of cloth you sent me is all sold with the exception of about three pieces, and paid for in cash; a few have said they had no money and ask me to set it down in the book for them to pay when they get money from the cotton. I always trust them in this way when they desire it, and find them very reluctant to run up a long score. My willingness to trust them gives them confidence that they will be paid for their cotton labor, and though the "white folks" at Hilton Head are telling them that the cotton crop is a mere speculation on our part, I don't think they listen much to them. One man told me to-day that nobody could cross the sill of my door to harm me or my ladies while he could prevent it. This same man was sent by his master, the day that Hilton Head was taken, with a fleet of flat-boats, to bring the secession soldiers away from their forts. W. C. G. says of the situation at this time: _May 27._ Between the gradual settling of affairs, the people's growing confidence in us and in the Government as paymasters, and the absence of the unruly men, the plantations are getting on quite nicely. The land, both corn and cotton, has been divided and allotted to the hands,--so a new system of labor[44] is--on our places--already inaugurated. FROM H. W.