Returns are yet to be received from the parishes of Claiborne, Natchitoches, Winn and Sabine, and from Harrison county, Texas. These will all be given in by the 15th inst., and I shall then be able to determine the exact number employed upon each plantation and laboring under the new system. Regarding the average number employed upon each plantation in the parish of Caddo as a basis for an estimate, the returned rolls will foot up a list of 7,088 names, and the whole number of freedmen contracted with during the month of July in the district under my supervision will not probably exceed 20,000, or fall short of 15,000. During the month a sufficient length of time has elapsed to render judgment to a certain extent upon the workings of the new system. That it has not satisfied a majority of the planters is a conclusion which, from their disposition at first, was evident would be arrived at. That the freedmen have accepted the arrangements devised by the government for their protection so readily and have worked so faithfully, is a matter for congratulation. The planters at first expected that, though the power to "control" the persons of the laborers had been torn from them by the stern requirements of war, the agents of the bureau would, through the military, confine the negro to their plantations and compel him to labor for them. In this way it was thought that the same _regime_ as pursued in times of slavery could be kept up, and it was this idea which prompted a planter, noted for his frankness, to remark "that the people of the south desired the government to continue this supervision for a term of years." Finding that their ideas of the policy of the government were erroneous, and that they could not exercise this "controlling power" either directly or indirectly, and that the freedman was to be placed, as nearly as the circumstances surrounding his situation would permit, upon the same grounds as the white laborer, it is but a logical sequence that the planters should be disappointed and dissatisfied with the work performed by the freedmen. In this place it may be well to notice that the country is yet in a very unsettled condition. After a four years' war which has sapped it of all its resources, and after a life-long servitude for a hard taskmaster, the negro is liberated from bondage, and he finds the people of the country in no condition to offer him the most advantageous terms for his services. This, with the natural desire experienced by all mankind for a period of repose after that of incessant and forced labor, is one of the causes which have contributed to render the freedmen negligent and inconstant at their work. Reports are constantly brought to this office by the negroes from the interior that freedmen have been kidnapped and summarily disposed of. These obtain circulation and credence among all classes, and, whether true or not, operate disadvantageously to the interests of both the planters and the freedmen.