I believe, my dear General, I have given you all the information I have with regard to the Hermitage, its culture and management. If there should be anything else you wish me to attend to, let me know and it shall be done. The old General was mollified by Major Lewis’s painstaking report of conditions at the Hermitage, and wrote him thanking him for relieving him of the “great anxiety and pain” under which he had been laboring as a result of the reports he had been receiving of the overseer’s excessive severity. Regarding Hannah, the little girl with the sore hip, he wrote: [Illustration: SECOND FLOOR PLAN Allowing for the use of the then customary armoirs in place of the present-day closets and the fact that bathrooms were non-existent at the time, the most confirmed modernist could find no fault with this arrangement for living.] I will thank you to get Dr. Hogg to see Hannah. I would be sorry she would become a cripple. You may say to Dr. Hogg that her lameness was occasioned by a stroke from Betty, or jumping over a rope in which her feet became entangled and she fell and hurt her hip. I will thank you to say to the overseer to prevent Betty from beating or cruelly using the little negroes that are under her about the kitchen. A small switch only ought to be used, but sometimes she uses any weapon she can get, and chokes and abuses them and brings on disease. Give such directions about the negro girl as though she was your own. This was not the first time he had had cause to complain to the conduct of Betty, the cook. Back in 1821, while he was in Florida at grips with the Spanish officials, word reached him from the Hermitage that this same Betty, then Mrs. Jackson’s maid, had been misbehaving; and he set aside his dispute with Señor Calava long enough to write to A. J. Donelson: Mrs. Jackson informs me that her maid Betty has been putting on some airs and has been guilty of a great deal of impudence. On this subject I have wrote Dr. Brunaugh and Mr. Blair. I have said to Mr. Blair that I hold him responsible for the control of the servants, and I have directed that the first impertinence she uses or the first disobedience of orders that she is to be publicly whipped. It is humiliating to me to have to resort to this, but I have to request of you to observe her conduct and the first disobedience or impudence order Mr. Blair to give her fifty lashes. If he does not perform it, dismiss him, and as soon as I get possession I will order a corporal to give it to her publicly. I am determined to cure her.