I could not hope to be exempted from trouble and perplexity in managing an enterprise which depended altogether on popular favor, and which involved great consequences to myself; but I did not expect the numerous petty annoyances which beset me, especially in the early period of the concerts. Miss Lind did not dream, nor did any one else, of the unparalleled enthusiasm that would greet her; and the first immense assembly at Castle Garden somewhat prepared her, I suspect, to listen to evil advisers. It would seem that the terms of our revised contract were sufficiently liberal to her and sufficiently hazardous to myself, to justify the expectation of perfectly honorable treatment; but certain envious intermeddlers appeared to think differently. “Do you not see, Miss Lind, that Mr. Barnum is coining money out of your genius?” said they; of course she saw it, but the high-minded Swede despised and spurned the advisers who recommended her to repudiate her contract with me at all hazards, and take the enterprise into her own hands--possibly to put it into theirs. I, however, suffered much from the unreasonable interference of her lawyer, Mr. John Jay. Benedict and Belletti behaved like men, and Jenny afterwards expressed to me her regret that she had for a moment listened to the vexatious exactions of her legal counsellor. To show the difficulties with which I had to contend thus early in my enterprise, I copy a letter which I wrote, a little more than one month after Miss Lind commenced her engagement with me, to my friend Mr. Joshua Bates, of Messrs. Baring, Brothers & Co., London: NEW YORK, Oct. 23, 1850. JOSHUA BATES ESQ.: DEAR SIR,--I take the liberty to write you a few lines, merely to say that we are getting along as well as could reasonably be expected. In this country you are aware that the rapid accumulation of wealth always creates much envy, and envy soon augments to malice. Such are the elements at work to a limited degree against myself, and although Miss Lind, Benedict and myself have never, as yet, had the slightest feelings between us, to my knowledge, except those of friendship, yet I cannot well see how this can long continue in face of the fact that, nearly every day, they allow persons (some moving in the first classes of society) to approach them, and spend hours in traducing me; even her attorney, Mr. John Jay, has been so blind to her interests, as to aid in poisoning her mind against me, by pouring into her ears the most silly twaddle, all of which amounts to nothing and less than nothing--such as the regret that I was a ‘showman,’ exhibitor of Tom Thumb, etc., etc.