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had made more decided progress, and were more fitted for entire self-reliance, than those who had remained as laborers on the plantations owned by Mr. Philbrick and his associates upon St. Helena Island. Yet it would be impossible to try the system of tenant-industry more judiciously than it was tried under those circumstances; and if even that was found, on the whole, to retard the development of self-reliance in the freedmen, what must it be where this is a part of a great system of coercion, and where the mass of the employers are still slaveholders at heart?

It is a fact of the greatest importance, that King Cotton turns out to be a thorough citizen-king, and adapts himself very readily to changed events. The great Southern staple can be raised by small cultivators as easily as corn or potatoes; and difficulty begins only when sugar and rice are to be produced. Yet it will not be long before these also will come within reach of the freedmen, if they continue their present tendency towards joint-stock operations. In the colored regiments of South Carolina there are organizations owning plantations, saw-mills, town-lots, and a grocery or two: they even meditate a steamboat. A few of these associations no doubt will go to pieces, through fraud or inexperience. Indeed, I knew of one which was nearly broken asunder by the president's taking a fancy to send in his resignation: no other member knew the meaning of that hard word, and they were disposed to think it a declaration of hostilities from the presiding officer. But even if such associations all fail, for the present, the training which they give will be no failure; and when we consider that there are already individuals among the freedmen who have by profitable ventures laid up twenty or thirty thousand dollars within three years, it seems no extravagant ambition for a joint-stock company to aim at a rice-mill.

The Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia, where, from the very beginning, under the limited authority of General Saxton, the most favorable results of emancipation have been attained, are now to be the scene of a larger experiment, still under the same wise care. The objections urged by General Butler, with his usual acuteness, against some details of the project of General Sherman, must not blind us to its real importance. Its implied exclusions can easily be modified; but the rights which it vests in the freedmen are a substantial fact, which, when once established, it will require a revolution to overthrow. The locality fixed for the experiment is singularly favorable. There is no region of the country where a staple crop can be grown so profitably by small landholders. There is no agricultural region so defensible, in a military aspect. So difficult is the navigation of the muddy tide-streams which endlessly intersect these islands,—so narrow are the connecting causeways, so completely is every plantation surrounded and subdivided by hedges, ditches, and earthworks, long since made for agricultural purposes, and now most available for defence,—that nothing this side of the famous military region of La Vendée (which this district much resembles) can be more easily held by peasant proprietors.

The mere accidents of the war have often led to the experiment of leaving small bodies of colored settlers, in such favorable localities, to support and defend themselves. This was successfully done, for instance, on Barnwell Island, a tract two or three miles square, which lies between Port Royal Island and the main, in the direction of Pocotaligo, and is the site of the Rhett Plantation, described in Mr. W. H. Russell's letters. This region was entirely beyond our picket lines, and was separated from them by a navigable stream, while from the Rebel lines it was divided only by a narrow creek that would have been fordable at low water, but for the depth of mud beneath and around. it. On this island a colony of a hundred or thereabouts dwelt in peace, with no resident white man, and only an occasional visit from their superin-