A peculiar feature of the society of the river counties was the perfect freedom of manners, and yet the high polish, the absence of neighborhood discord, and the strict regard for personal and pecuniary rights: a sort of universal confidence pervaded every community, and in every transaction personal honor supplied the place of litigation. Strangers of respectable appearance were not met with apparent suspicion, but with hospitable kindness; and especially was this the case toward young men who professedly came in search of a new home and new fields for the exercise of their abilities professionally, or for the more profitable employment of any means they might to have brought to the country. Now, at seventy years of age, and after the experience of half a century of men and society in almost every portion of the Union, I can truthfully say, nowhere have I ever met so truthful, so generous, and so hospitable a people as the planters and gentlemen of the river counties of Mississippi, fifty years ago--nowhere women more refined, yet affable; so modest, yet frank and open in their social intercourse; so dignified, without austerity; so chaste and pure in sentiment and action, without prudery or affectation, as the mothers, wives, and daughters of those planters. The Bench and the Bar were distinguished for ability and purity; many of these have left national reputations--all of them honorable names to their families and profession. Nor were the physicians less distinguished. The names of Provan, McPheters, Cartwright, Ogden, Parker, Cox, and Dennie will be remembered when all who were their compeers shall have passed away, as ornaments to their profession. There is one other, still living at a very advanced age, who was perhaps the superior of any I have mentioned--James Metcalf, who not only was and is an ornament to his profession, but to human nature. He is one of the few surviving monuments of the men of fifty years ago. His life has been eminently useful and eminently pure. He has lived to see his children emulating his example as virtuous and useful citizens, above reproach, and an honor to their parents.