Captain F——­ told me that at St. Clair General Oglethorpe, the good and brave English governor of the State of Georgia in its colonial days, had his residence, and that among the magnificent live oaks which surround the site of the former settlement, there was one especially venerable and picturesque, which in his recollection always went by the name of General Oglethorpe’s Oak.  If you remember the history of the colony under his benevolent rule, you must recollect how absolutely he and his friend and counsellor, Wesley, opposed the introduction of slavery in the colony.  How wrathfully the old soldier’s spirit ought to haunt these cotton fields and rice swamps of his old domain, with their population of wretched slaves!  I will ride to St. Clair and see his oak; if I should see him, he cannot have much to say to me on the subject that I should not cry amen to.

Saturday, March 2.—­I have made a gain, no doubt, in one respect in coming here, dear E——­, for, not being afraid of a rearing stallion, I can ride; but, on the other hand, my aquatic diversions are all likely, I fear, to be much curtailed.  Well may you, or any other Northern Abolitionist, consider this a heaven-forsaken region,—­why?  I cannot even get worms to fish with, and was solemnly assured by Jack this morning that the whole ‘point,’ i.e. neighbourhood of the house, had been searched in vain for these useful and agreeable animals.  I must take to some more sportsman-like species of bait; but in my total ignorance of even the kind of fish that inhabit these waters, it is difficult for me to adapt my temptations to their taste.

Yesterday evening I had a visit that made me very sorrowful—­if anything connected with these poor people can be called more especially sorrowful than their whole condition; but Mr. ——­’s declaration that he will receive no more statements of grievances or petitions for redress through me, makes me as desirous now of shunning the vain appeals of these unfortunates as I used to be of receiving and listening to them.  The imploring cry, ‘Oh missis!’ that greets me whichever way I turn, makes me long to stop my ears now; for what can I say or do any more for them?  The poor little favours—­the rice, the sugar, the flannel—­that they beg for with such eagerness, and receive with such exuberant gratitude, I can, it is true, supply, and words and looks of pity and counsel of patience and such instruction in womanly habits of decency and cleanliness, as may enable them to better, in some degree, their own hard lot; but to the entreaty, ’Oh missis, you speak to massa for us!  Oh missis, you beg massa for us!  Oh missis, you tell massa for we, he sure do as you say!’—­I cannot now answer as formerly, and I turn away choking and with eyes full of tears from the poor creatures, not even daring to promise any more the faithful transmission of their prayers.