and healthy appearance of the slaves, with which the city seems to swarm, and of whom I have now six or seven males, and as many females, in constant attendance, and one or two at all meals, surrounding the long table, waving over it plumes of peacock's feathers, to fan away hungry flies from eatables and eaters. It is commonly asserted, and maintained, {42} that slaves are happier here and better off than free blacks. There seems, indeed, in this city, no want of happiness amongst them.
23rd.—Accompanied by my courteous and obliging friend, Mr. Bishop, to my bankers, Mess. Lovent and Wulf, Germans, of high commercial repute, and to Mitchell King, Esq., now Judge King, a Scotch gentleman of high reputation, to whom, with several others too numerous to name, I brought letters of introduction. At three o'clock I returned to my hotel to dinner, where I again met, in the chair, General Young Blood, Watts, Esq., the Secretary of State, the French consul, and many other grandees of this state, civil and military. Besides turtle-soup and turtle-steaks, the number of our viands was to me countless, and at present indescribable; and to every plate stood two half-pint decanters of rum, brandy, or Hollands, to drink at dinner, instead of ale. After dinner came claret, champaigne, and cider, all of the best kind, for those gentlemen who gave an order for it, and to those who did not, the bottle seemed to pass with the name of its proprietor, when both socially drank to each other. In the evening, after supper or tea, I was taken by Prescott, Esq., to the grand new steamship, the Savannah, a beautiful and superb vessel, then about sailing, for the first time, to Liverpool and St. Petersburgh.
24th.—Bought a piece of fine India bandanas, seven
