Whether Florida should ever have been a State in the Union, is a grave question but whether it should be one now, is, as it seems to me, no question at all. The total free population of the State, at the outbreak of the war, was seventy-eight thousand—a little more than a third as much as the city of Cincinnati, and only a few thousand over the present population of Cleveland or Albany. Giving such a constituency, scattered over a peninsula of swamps and everglades, and outlying barren islands, two Senators to balance the votes of Messrs. Wade and Sherman, or Sumner and Wilson, or Morgan and Harris, is very much like erecting Cleveland and Albany into independent governments, and saying they shall exercise equal powers in Congress with the States of Ohio and New York. Giving these Senators now, when their constituents have nearly all been in the Rebel army, and when, vehemently protesting against negro suffrage, they shut out all possibility of loyal votes, would be putting a reward on treason that we can hardly afford to pay.
One fails to understand how contemptibly small is the population scattered over this great expanse of territory, till he looks at the sizes of the principal towns. I have spoken of Fernandina as a village. Its population is less than fourteen hundred, all told; its white population less than eight hundred; and yet it is one of the largest towns in the State! Here is a table of the population of all the other “principal places:”
| White. | Total. | |
|---|---|---|
| Apalachicola | 1,379 | 1,904 |
| Jacksonville | 1,133 | 2,118 |
| Key West | 2,241 | 2,832 |
| Pensacola | 1,789 | 2,876 |
| St. Augustine | 1,175 | 1,914 |
| Tallahassee | 997 | 1,932 |
The citizens of Fernandina had recently been having an election for Mayor, and the old ways had been destroyed by the participation of negroes in the election. The violent Rebels of the place were all away in the Rebel army; the loyalists were very glad to be re-enforced by the negroes, and so they had been the first in the United States to exercise the right of suffrage. The Mayor elect, a M. Mot, was an enthusiastic little Frenchman, devoted to the idea that Fernandina might rival the olives of Seville, and that the olive oil of Florida might yet be fully equal to that of old Spain. He had not been sworn in, and so the Chief-Justice performed the ceremony in the little wooden building at the water’s edge—used for the custom house—in the presence of half a dozen witnesses. The little Frenchman may not make a fortune from his olive oil, but he enjoys the pre-eminence of being the first officer elected in the United States by universal loyal suffrage, and of having his election recognized by the highest judicial authority of the nation. The chances of the olive, however, seem to be also good. M. Mot came on board with a little bottle of oil, which he displayed in great triumph. “Bettare oleeve oil dare vas nevare.” And he seemed quite right. The old inhabitants say that every few years the frosts are likely to nip his olives; but we saw orchards of them growing beautifully in the open air, which had never been injured. If he should succeed, he will have added no inconsiderable element to the productive industry of Florida.
Fernandina has been held by our troops for a long time, but for over a year the Rebels were just across the Bay, and the pickets of the opposing forces were often separated by only this narrow sheet of water. Mr. Hallett Kilbourn, the Government purchasing agent, has thus found his area greatly circumscribed. He boasts that he has bought enough to pay the expenses of his office, but beyond this his operations are not likely to extend. Rebels are beginning to return, and disputes as to property are already common. Men who find that the Government, while they have been fighting to overthrow it, has used their property, complain bitterly of the injustice with which they are treated; and through the very importunity of their complaints, they are not unlikely to carry some of their claims.
A little negro school here, displayed the same rapid progress in the lower branches which has been observed all along the coast. Here, too, the negroes seemed deficient in love for the old masters, to whom we have been told that they were so much attached; and when informed of Jeff. Davis’ capture, spontaneously struck up the same song as at Hilton Head—
“We’ll hang Jeff. Davis on a sour apple tree.”
Leaving Fernandina, and steaming up the St. Johns’ river, we saw something of the cracker “plantations.” The native forests generally ran down to the water’s edge, but here and there, little lawn-like inclosures, extended back to clumps of trees, in the midst of which shabby frame houses could be seen—the “mansions” of the Floridian planters. Cultivated fields were rare, and the country seemed rather used for grazing than for any more strictly agricultural purposes. Pelicans were seen occasionally in the water, quite near the boat, and immense stories were told of the alligators one did not see. Scarcely a white man appeared along the whole route, and even the negroes were seen infrequently.
Starting from Fernandina at noon, we were at Jacksonville an hour before sundown. A few brick warehouses and stores make up the street fronting on the water, and a huge billiard saloon seems as much of an institution as the stores. Everywhere the sand was almost bottomless, and walking, for even a square or two, was exceedingly uncomfortable. A negro guard paced along the wharf; negroes in uniform were scattered about the streets, interspersed with a few Rebel soldiers, and a very neatly-policed negro camp occupied one of the vacant squares. These negroes are fine, stalwart men, better in physique than those at Savannah, and, in fact, rather superior to the lusty fellows at Port Royal. They seemed to speak a worse patois than the Sea Islanders, and words of Spanish, in the mouths of some of them, testified to their being genuine sons of the soil, with a lineage running back in a straight line to the days of the Spanish occupation. There was scarcely a mulatto among them.
Within a few moments after our boat touched the wharf, a Tax Commissioner of Florida, and a curious, squatty military officer, with certainly the most extraordinary squeaking voice ever heard on a parade ground, came on board. The officer was General Israel Vogdes, an old West Pointer, standing high in the technical points of his profession, and more than fair in its practice. He commanded the post, and proved as agreable in all other respects as he was vocally atrocious. He had established his headquarters in the best house in town; and the staff whiled away their leisure hours in the runaway Rebel’s billiard room, or over his books.