_March 8._ I should like to come home and make inquiries among my
friends concerning Port Royal matters. I should like to take the part
of an intelligent foreigner desiring to obtain information concerning
this interesting experiment of free black labor. And when I had heard
and written down their description of this enterprise, I should return
to my friends here and read for their entertainment. How we should
laugh; I must try it some day.
When the lands are finally sold, a great many entertaining questions
will arise. Only the real estate will be sold; what is to be done with
the cattle, the mules, the boats, the furniture, the carriages? How is
the Government to be repaid for what it has spent on this year's crop?
How are the reserved plantations to be worked by the Government?
The sale having taken place at last on March 9, the list
with which C. P. W. begins his next letter is of plantations
reserved from sale by the Government.
_March 10._ The Oaks, Oakland, where Mr. Hunn's Philadelphia
Commission store is, Eddings Point, T. B. Fripp, my two McTureous
places, the Hope Place, and a few others on the Sea Side road, about
four at Land's End, etc., etc. Mr. Eustis and a Mr. Pritchard, living
on Pritchard's Island, near Land's End, paid taxes before the sale.
(Most of the places reserved were selected for the purpose of selling
land to the negroes next year, after this crop is in.)
The General [Saxton] is afraid that some speculators may interfere
with the plan for this year which has been started.[120] He has made
certain promises to the people in regard to this year's crop, and he
feels that he ought to be able to impose some conditions on
purchasers. Of course he could not impose conditions under which the
lands should be sold, but he still may, as Military Governor, enforce
justice toward the people.