FORT STODDERT 12TH NOV 1815
DEAR SIR I had the pleasure of receiving on the 5th of this month your favour of Oct 12th
I believe it came as quick as letters usually do from that part of the country a distance of about 200 miles:--whilst we get letters that are sent by way of Miledgeville from Washington City in 23 or 25 days. There is, indeed, some radical defect in the mail establishment between this countyr and Natchez. It ought to go direct to Natchez or Washington:--whereas it goes to Pinkneyville,---which this country has as much to with as with Grand Cairo.
The people of Wayne county on the Chickasawhay have petitioned for a post office at their court house,--and I recommended Col James Patton as postmaster. I believe that the mail from St Stephens to Greene C. H. on Leaf river (the other branch of the Pascagola) might go without much inconvenience now,--and without any, if they have opened a road they talked of from St Stephens to Wayne C. H. (called Winchester) and from Winchester to Greene C. H.
I beg the favour of you to speak to the Post Mr Genl about it
I am truly gratified to find that "the uprincipled and unfair" devices of which you complain have not proved successful.
They do so often succeed in this country;--that one may well feel some consolation to meet with even a solitary instance of their want of success. There is a baseness and malignity of invention,--a depth of intrigue, and a perseverance in exertions to break down or to keep down,--those that (superior to the spirit of faction) will not bend the knee to Baal; that good men themselves are often imposed upon,--and bad men or ambitious men, believe it to be the high way to wealth and honour and glory to take part in the greatdrama of imposture and corruption. I speak, however, of this part of the territory, for I am but little acquainted with the Mississ country; but I find that perfect strangers who come here, determined to be great men, soon become, under the tuition of our master magicians,--as perfect adepts as the old practitioners.--
But alas! I am forgetting what I sat down to write about.
I have been very much pressed to write to you earnestly on the subject of a petition which will accompany this, and which has been signed very generally throughout the whole country. I have not attended to it much myself,--for I have been more especially occupied with takning an account of the losses sustained by the people during the war, on which I shall take the liberty of addressing you by another mail.
With respect however to this petition for indulgence in making land payments, and for the liberty of appropriating what has been paid to a part of the land originally purchased;--I know very well what up hill work it is for a territorial delegate to move such a business in Congress:--and yet I am sure that,--justice,--strict, plain justice,--without any mixture of liberality,--requires it. It will not be very easy, indeed, to persuade strangers of this:--for the troubles, discouragements and disadvantages under which we have laboured since the month of August 1913 cannot be accurately estimated by those who have not resided in this part of the territory.
From that time for many months the whole country, I may say, was abandoned. The people left their houses and plantations and took refuge in forts.
Some fled to the west of Pearl river, and some to Mobile. Great expences were incurred in moving about,--and in living in strange places;--whilst their corn, their hogs,--their cattle--their sheep, and in many cases their houses were destroyed at home. It was impossible therefore that they should pay for their lands.
Their lands, indeed, became worth nothing:--for it was long a question whether the whole country must not be utterly abandoned:--and I verily believe that the exertions of Col M’Kee with the Choctaw Inians, did more than any thing else to save us from them. No one travelled thro’ the Country alone:--and even field officers when travelling in Company, have thought it prudent (as I think I have been informed,--and as no doubt it was) to put their epaulets in their pocket or otherwise to conceal them.
When the destruction occasioned by the indians in some degree subsided; our protectors themselves levied new contribution’s:--the soldir succeeded the savage:--the locusts followed the hail and the murrain, and "ate up the residue of that which had escaped."
They found crops abandoned and of no value. They were in want themselves.
They used them,--and no doubt often wasted them. This however introduced bad habits:--and when property became more safe,--and wants less urgent: the reluctance to invade private property had worn away, and fresh inroads were made on very slight pretences. A strange notion prevailed too among militia officers of their right to press, as they termed it,--your corn,--your cattle,--your horses,--in short every thing.
Nay a neighbour of mine had his cotton gin house pressed by a body of Militia,--who no doubt were fully satisfied that the dry plank &timbers of a large building made much more comfortable fires than green pine. Troops of horse have gone through the Country and taken corn whereever they have found it, not leaving enough for people to subsist upon. Genl Jackson when finding what was done in his absence, sent (with his usual regard to justice) a quarter master to take an account of what property had been obtained in this way:--but it may be some time yet before the people will be paid.
Others who sold corn &c (and were afterwards obliged to purchase at higher prices) and whose accounts are actually liquidated,--and orders given for payment by the proper officers;--cannot obtain payment, but are notified by the Quarter Master that their accounts must be sent on for adjustment to Washington City. I know families with from 50 to 80 negroes who have not a dollar to buy one single article for family use,--& and who have not received a dollar for any article of produce, for three crops.
The ordinary channel of supplies for the army, by sea from Orleans, being cut off; the military were obliged to take beeves and corn wherever they could find them. Hence when peace took place; the people were destitute.
I had six hands engaged in raising corn last year and nothing else. I sold none. None was taken from me: (--for tho’ it was attempted; I prevented it.):--and yet I had to buy all my bread from April last, till the new crop came in:--and had not peace taken place; I could not have bought it at all:--for the whole had to come from Orleans. Our country is thinly settled near me. I live on the main road. My official station precludes my keeping a public house:--but in the time of general commotion especially; corn &c wastes almost as much as if I did. I mention it however merely to shew the situation of the country; and to satisfy you that when general causes prevent people from making money; they cannot pay it. I do hope that these considerations will have some weight with Congress.
I know that they have been tired out with petitions about payments due on public lands: but I am very certain that they never had before them any application for indulgence, where the claim was so well founded as it is in this case:--and if they had not granted indulgences before; they could not possibly have a doubt about it now:--and yet the very circumstance of their having granted such indulgence on slighter graounds,--tho’ it may make them averse to extending the precedent,--really ought to induce them to do it, in such a plain a case as this, without hesitation. I am dear ser Yours very respectfully.
HARRY TOULMIN