I am now quite settled. My establishment consists of a housekeeper, cook, and chambermaid, seamstress, and two footmen. There are, besides, two fishermen and four bargemen always at command. The department of laundress is done abroad. The plantation affords plenty of milk, cream, and butter; turkeys, fowls, kids, pigs, geese, and mutton; fish, of course, in abundance. Of figs, peaches, and melons there are yet a few. Oranges and pomegranates just begin to be eatable. The house affords Madeira wine, brandy, and porter. Yesterday my neighbour, Mr. Couper, sent me an assortment of French wines, consisting of Claret, Sauterne, and Champagne, all excellent; and at least a twelve months' supply of orange shrub, which makes a most delicious punch. Madame Couper added sweetmeats and pickles. The plantations of Butler and Couper are divided by a small creek, and the houses within one quarter of a mile of each other; accessible, however, only by water. We have not a fly, moscheto, or bug. I can sit a whole evening, with open windows and lighted candles, without the least annoyance from insects; a circumstance which I have never beheld in any other place. I have not even seen a cockroach.

At Mr. Couper's, besides his family, there are three young ladies, visitors. One of them arrived about three months ago from France, to join a brother who had been shipwrecked on this coast, liked the country so much that he resolved to settle here, and sent for this sister and a younger brother. About the time of their arrival, the elder brother was accidentally drowned; the younger went with views to make an establishment some miles inland, where he now lies dangerously ill. Both circumstances are concealed from the knowledge of Mademoiselle Nicholson. In any event, she will find refuge and protection in the benevolent house of Mr. Couper.

The cotton in this neighbourhood, on the coast southward to the extremity of Florida, and northward as far as we have heard, has been totally destroyed. The crop of Mr. C. was supposed to be worth one hundred thousand dollars, and not an extravagant estimate, for he has eight hundred slaves. He will not get enough to pay half the expenses of the plantation. Yet he laughs about it with good humour and without affectation. Butler suffers about half this loss. Part of his force had been turned to rice. My travelling companion, secretary, and aid-de-camp is Samuel Swartwout, the youngest brother of John, a very amiable young man of twenty or twenty-one.

Now, verily, were it not for the intervention of one hundred miles of low, swampy, pestiferous country, I would insist on your coming to see me, all, all! Little gamp, and Mademoiselle Sum_tare_, and their appendages; for they are the principals.

I still propose to visit Florida. To set off in three or four days, and to return hither about the 16th of September; beyond this I have at present no plan. It is my wish, God knows how ardently I wish, to return by land, and pass a week with you; but, being without horses, and there being no possibility of hiring or buying, the thing seems scarcely practicable. Two modes only offer themselves—either to embark in the kind of mail stage which goes from Darien through Savannah, Augusta, and Columbia, to Camden, or to take a water passage either to Charleston or Georgetown. Either of these being accomplished, new difficulties will occur in getting from Statesburgh northward. I must be at New-York the first week in November. Consult your husband, and write me of these matters. Enclose to Mr. Roswell King, which I repeat, lest my former letters should not have been received. Our mail has just arrived, but has brought me no letter.

I erred a little in my history of the family of Mademoiselle N. There are still two brothers here. One a man d'une certaine age. Though not wealthy, they are not destitute of property.

Mr. C. has just now gone with his boat for the dashers who live about thirty miles southwest on the main. He has requested me to escort Madame C. on Sunday to his plantation on the south end of this island, where we are to meet him and his party on Monday, and bring them home in our coach. Madame C. is still young, tall, comely, and well bred.

I have been studying all the maps and gazetteers to discover the best access to Statesburgh. Georgetown seems to be the nearest port; but whether there be thence a direct road, I cannot discover. Does our friend Doctor Blythe still reside at Georgetown? If so, I should repose on him for the means of transportation. Desire Mari to write to him to aid me in case I should take that route. If I should go to Charleston, meaning to Sullivan's Island, for Charleston I shall at this season most certainly avoid, I should put myself on General M'Pherson, who, I hear, is now living there with his family; thence up the Cooper river, about four miles above the town, is a ferryhouse and tavern on the north side, and thence by Strawberry, where is the best tavern in the state, is a very direct and beautiful road, and thence, according to the maps, a very straight road to the high hills of Santee. But how to get from that ferryhouse is a question I cannot resolve. All these circumstances are mentioned that I may have your advice, meaning that of your husband. And, after all, it is possible that I may not be able to find a passage either to Charleston or Georgetown, and so be obliged to sail for New-York. Will close this letter, for to-morrow it must go to the postoffice at Darien, which is only about twenty-two miles distant.

September 1.

In one of Mr. Alston's letters he spoke of taking you and A. B. A. to the mountains; and, in a letter which I wrote him from Philadelphia, I proposed to meet you in the mountains. Now, for aught which I as yet know, it will be as easy for me to get to the mountains, or to the Alps, or the Andes, as to Statesburgh, and therefore, as before, I crave counsel.