Sir: I have the honor to report, in accordance with orders, that in the district under my supervision, comprising eight parishes in Louisiana and two counties in Texas, and an area of about 13,764 square miles, 3,105 contracts have been made, and 27,830 laborers enrolled since the first of July. The work of making contracts is now nearly completed, but the returns for the month of August from the officers acting in the different parishes have not as yet been received. From the data already collected it will be safe to estimate the whole number of laborers working under the contract system in the district at not less than 32,000, 25,000 of whom are in Louisiana. The experience of two months has demonstrated the fact that the negro will work well when he is well paid and kindly treated; and another principle in the nature of the contracting parties has been equally as clearly elucidated, _i.e_., the planters are disposed to pay the freedmen the least possible sum for their labor, and that for much compensation the freedmen make an offset by making as little as possible. To acknowledge the right of the negro to freedom, and to regard him as a free man entitled to the benefits of his labor and to all the privileges and immunities of citizenship, is to throw aside the dogmas for which the south have been contending for the last thirty years, and seems to be too great a stride for the people to take at once, and too unpalatable a truth for the aristocratic planter to comprehend, without the interposition of the stern logic of the bayonet in the hands of a colored soldier. Duty to my government compels me to report the following well-authenticated facts: 1. Nineteen-twentieths of the planters have no disposition to pay the negro well or treat him well. 2. In the same proportion the planting aristocracy proffers obedience to the government, and at the same time do all in their power to make trouble. 3. The planters evince a disposition to throw all the helpless and infirm freedmen upon the hands of the government possible, in order to embarrass us and compel us to return them to slavery again. 4. A majority of the planters desire to prevent the success of the free-labor system, that they may force Congress to revive slavery, or, what is more, a system of peonage. 5. The belief is general among the planters that without some means of "controlling" the persons of the laborers they cannot succeed; and for this reason they desire to have the military force removed, and the privilege of enacting such laws as will enable them to retain this power. 6. To defraud, oppress, and maltreat the freedmen seems to be the principle governing the action of more than half of those who make contracts with them. 7. The lives of the freedmen are frequently threatened, and murders are not of uncommon occurrence.