Horry's on the 5th, and on the 6th set out for Charleston; the road uncommonly fine. We arrived at the ferry about dusk; but so bad was the weather that we could not finish our journey until the 7th, when we arrived in Charleston about eleven o'clock, in good health and good spirits. Saturday. Passed the evening with Mr. Ford.1 Sunday. With Miss Ladsons. 2 Monday, Feb. 11. Wrote to Dr. Warren. Passed the evening with Mr. Desaussure. Tuesday. With Mr. Desaussure at a picnic, so called. The gentlemen of the town resort to the concert-room, where they dance, play cards, and sup. Their supper is made up of a collection from each other, to which they contribute by each one carrying a dish and a bottle of wine and loaf of bread. We passed a pleasant evening; but the institution has its inconveniences. It is not guarded sufficiently against the admission of improper company; and oftentimes the supper presents a very curious collection, such as eight or ten turkeys, a majority of pies, or some very curious specimen of cookery, — there being no previous understanding among the concerns as to the dishes carried. Wednesday. Rained all day. Spent this day at the Supreme Court in attending to a cause in which a Mr. Ingraham was concerned, formerly a Bostonian. The talents of the bar were displayed upon this occasion, and Mr. [John Julius] Pringle, Mr. Desaussure, Mr. K[eating Lewis] Simons, Mr. [Thomas] Parker, and Mr. J[ohn] Ward acquitted themselves with great reputation.1 Thursday. Visited a vessel at Geyer's Wharf, on board of which were about two hundred Africans, the remnant of a cargo arrived a few weeks since. They appeared healthy, unconcerned, and without intellect or sensibility. It wrung me to the soul to reflect upon the future destinies of the several individuals, and the poor miserable prospects they had presented to them. For what came they into life? They appeared totally insensible to the least regard or concern for each other, upon being sold and leaving the vessel. I saw no one that took the least notice of those he left behind. I saw many of them leave the vessel to return no more, and probably never see the face of one of their fellow-passengers; this without the least emotion on either side. I saw no difference (except in form) between them and an equal number of brutes. 1 Timothy Ford (Coll. N. J. 1783), a prominent member of the Charleston Bar and partner of Mr. Desaussure. He died in 1831.- EDS. 2 Dr. John Collins Warren, of Boston, son-in-law of Mr. Mason. He died in 1856. EDS. 3 Henry William Desaussure, afterwards Chancellor of the State. He died in 1839.-EDS. 4 An interesting account of the Charleston Bar is given by Mr. Charles Fraser in his Reminiscences of Charleston, pp. 69, 73. — Eds. Dined this day with Mr. Frederick Rutledge,1 and passed the evening at a subscription concert, and ball afterwards. A handsome display of ninety and upwards of ladies, many of them [with] strong pretensions to beauty, and all of them handsome in appearance and agreeable and refined in manners. The music excellent, and everything conducted with much propriety. 2 Friday. Dined with Mr. Hugh Rutledge, the Judge in Chancery; and the evening passed with Mrs. and Miss McPherson, at a musical party. Saturday. Clear and cold; frost, and no fire, which is bad; and an open house, which is worse. The evening with Mr. Cripps and family; an elegant ball and supper. Monday, 18th. Visited the Orphan House; passed the evening at the play. Tuesday. Dined with Colonel Morris; passed evening with Major Ladson. Wednesday. Races; and dined with Jockey Club. Evening at Mr. Desaussure's. Invited to pass the evening with Mr. and Mrs. Wragg; also some Friday evening with Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell; declined, preengagement. Thursday. General McPherson's, dined; evening at the play. Saturday, 23d. Dined with General Pinckney. Evening with Mrs. Middleton.* Sunday. Invited to dine with T[homas] Pinckney, Jr.; refused, engaged. ... Tuesday. Dined with Mr. Price, and evening at concert for relief of St. Domingo inhabitants. Waltz. Wednesday. Dined with Governor Hamilton.5 In the day a review of General Read's brigade, and in the evening a ball at Mrs. McPherson's. Invited to dine on Thursday next at Mr. Joseph Manigold's [Manigault], but engaged. Thursday, 28th. Dined with J[ohn] B[ee] Holmes, Esq. Friday, March 1. Communicated to my family the distressful tidings of the death of Mrs. Perkins's child, and the illness of my respected father-in-law. Here is the end of their society in this place. In payment for past happiness they are now loaded with sorrow and affliction, 1 Son of Chief Justice Rutledge and son-in-law of Madam Horry. - EDs. 2 Brother of Chief Justice Rutledge. — EDS. 8 Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the celebrated Federalist. — EDs. 4 Probably the widow of the Hon. Arthur Middleton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, who was residing in Charleston a few years before this. - EDS. 5 Paul Hamilton, Governor of South Carolina, 1804-1806, and Secretary of the Navy, 1809-1813. He died in 1816. - EDs. and are to put on the sable garment of grief; and as though to be deprived of a parent at this distance from him, and in this unexpected moment, were not enough to fill up their cup of woe, they are agonized and wounded, sorely wounded, with the tidings of the death of the only beloved child of their aunt and her sister Anna. Gracious God, thy ways are inscrutable and past finding out! How foolish, how thoughtless, how insane, with such repeated admonitions, to be always unprepared for such dispensations! March 2, Saturday. Invited to tea by Dr. and Mrs. Ramsay,1 but declined. . . March 4. Heard from home of the continuation of my father-in-law's illness, so as to exclude my family from all society. . . . March 7. Thursday morning left Charleston in company with General Pinckney to visit Savannah; reached that day the plantation of General Washington; 2 dined and passed the day with this hospitable man, universally beloved throughout this country for his many virtues, his useful qualities, and his great benevolence. He has served his country during the last war, at the head of a regiment of horse, with great bravery and skill. He treated us with profusion and politeness, and with difficulty we left his house and his entreaties the next morning to progress on our journey. We rode the next day (Friday) to Mr. Price's, twenty-eight miles further; the succeeding day to Colonel Cuthbert's, at Portogallico [Pocotaligo]. On Sunday evening at General Read's, and on Monday at two o'clock we arrived in Savannah. Tuesday, the 12th, we passed in visiting the town, and dined with Mr. Thomas Gibbons, and in the society of a very respectable circle of Federalists. Savannah as a town is increasing, but it has no charms. It is a wooden town on a sand-heap. In walking their streets you labor as much as if you was wading through a snow-bank, with this difference only, you must walk blindfolded, or your eyes will be put out. It resembles my ideas of the Arabian deserts in a hurricane. No lady walks the roads, and the inhabitants never with pleasure, excepting after a rain; the least breeze of wind moves in clouds the sand through every street, in such abundance and so deep it is that no pavements can be laid either in the centre or sides of the streets. It is bad enough in cold weather, but the citizens exclaim against it in warm. The road to Savannah is extremely fine, though a great sameness throughout. Not 1 David Ramsay (Coll. N. J. 1765), a prominent physician, and author of a History of South Carolina and of several other works which had a reputation in their day. He died in 1815.. - EDS. 2 William Augustus Washington, a kinsman of President Washington's and a distinguished cavalry officer during the Revolutionary War. He was made a Brigadier-General in 1798. He died in 1810, aged fifty-eight. - EDS. 3 Thomas Gibbons was appointed Judge of the U. S. District Court for Georgia in 1801, but was probably not at this time on the bench. — EDS. altogether pines, but oak, hickory, cypress, and birch, with other and various kinds that denote a good soil. The plantations of rice are upon all the rivers, and those of cotton at a small distance from the roads. They live entirely within themselves; many of them extremely well and hospitably. On Wednesday morning a Mr. Mein called upon me with a note from my friend Rutledge, took me in his curricle to his plantation about twelve miles upon the river; and on Thursday morning, after entertaining us liberally and very handsomely, took my friend Rutledge and myself in his barge over to Union Ferry on the Charleston side, where my horse and chaise was in waiting. Rutledge and myself immediately proceeded, and that evening arrived at Colonel Cuthbert's; the next day we reached the plantation of Colonel Shirvin, and on Saturday, at noon, arrived in Charleston after a pleasant tour of ten days. The trees were most of them in blossom; and the redbud tree and the yellow jasmine were in great abundance in all the woods, and in all their beauty and fragrance. Most of the bushes and shrubs were evergreens, and interspersed with the wild laurel, the wild orange, and the magnolia tree. One great inconvenience is the distance you are obliged to travel from plantation to plantation, there being few or no taverns of consequence. I rode thirty miles many times, and in one instance forty, without feeding my horse. Their produce, in good seasons, is uncommonly profitable, as much, in cotton, as three hundred dollars to a hand, and nearly so in rice. They will make thirty per cent upon the real value of their farms in a single season. The ravages and devastation of the late hurricane are beyond description. As you pass the country, especially towards Savannah, you see whole sections of the forest blown down, without a single tree standing. They dread the hurricane and the caterpillar as they would death. While at Georgia I received a letter from Mr. Desaussure announcing that letters had been received at Charleston mentioning the death of my respected father[-in-law], who, by every account, seems to have left the world without regret, without a single pain, without the least apprehension, and in full possession of his mind; conscious of having done his duty to his fellow-creatures through a long life of seventy-eight years, he resigned it with the strong sense of his own rectitude, and the fullest assurance that he had nothing to fear, but everything to hope for from the mercy and justice of his Maker. His calmness, his philosophy, his judgment, and his conduct during his sickness and his last moments evince a strength of mind and fortitude which exceeds anything he ever manifested in his health and strength. I have no doubt he will meet the reward of uniform unshaken honesty and uprightness, of great affection and fidelity to his wife and children, and the best dispositions towards man. Sunday. Dined with Madam Horry and Mr. Frederick Rutledge. Monday, March 18, 1805. Dined at home with my family. . . Thursday. Dined with Mr. Ford; Friday, with Mr. Gabriel Manigold [Manigault]; and Saturday, with Mr. J. Rutledge. Sunday, March 24. The last day I expect to pass in Charleston; dined with Mr. Desaussure. Received, March 23, an order in my behalf upon the bank at Philadelphia for one thousand dollars. Monday, March 25. Set off in company with Mr. and Mrs. Desaussure to commence my journey to Boston by way of the Santee Canal. We rode the first day about thirty miles, to Mrs. Edwards's upon Cooper River, after sailing up to Clements's Ferry six miles in a pleasant boat, where we met our carriages, which we had sent on by land, and which had crossed the Cooper to Clements's. Tuesday, 26th. We spent the day in riding up the canal and viewing the different locks, single and double; and being also so fortunate as to see three or four loaded and as many empty boats pass up and down. In the evening we arrived at the head of the canal at the house of a Mr. Arthopel, the head agent of the canal, placed there by the company. At present this canal is not productive, it having cost upwards of six hundred thousand dollars, and its income does not exceed one thousand dollars per month. It is, however, a growing property, and in future days, with prosperous crops, it must appreciate in value. It now sells at a discount of fifty per cent. It is a very handsome work, and reflects great honor upon the enterprise of the country. It unites the Santee with the Cooper River, and the work with the locks is well executed and durable. The boats will carry at a trip one hundred bags of cotton, and are drawn at the rate of four miles per the hour by a couple of mules driven by a negro on its banks. The canal has seven locks in twenty-one miles, and is higher than the bed of either river, in some places fifty feet, and at the entrance ten in common times. It is supplied by springs and swamps, and one spring in particular, which we saw at a Mr. Maseek's, which was the finest fountain I ever saw. It came from its bottom; it was perfectly clear, and never affected by the severest droughts. Wednesday the 27th. At the head of the canal we parted with our friends Mr. and Mrs. Desaussure; they for Charleston and we for Statesburg. We crossed the Santee very easily about one o'clock, and arrived at Bimbo's Inn, a clean and good one, about three. We here dined plentifully, and are now thinking of our friends and the changes of a season. I am this moment diverted from my book by the sight of Mrs. Mason giving bread to three tame domesticated deer, - animals perfect of their kind, and some of the most beautiful in creation. From Santee Canal to Manchester, at Mr. Pitts's, where we dined. A very bad road; five miles swamp and causeway, and though not covered with water, a |