152 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



bound to fail. He has 40 acres of cane which he wishes 

 was out of the ground again. He won't build a sugar 

 house because he would have to become tributary to the 

 north, and the state now imports more than she sells, and 

 unless she will go to manufacturing right soon, and in 

 good earnest, she must become bankrupt, &c. He com- 

 plains that sugar makers are ruining the country by their 

 enormous consumption of wood; yet, the sale of wood is 

 the principal business of this man; and at a price, ($2.50 

 a cord,) that he would not realize if it were not for the 

 great consumption of the sugar works. 



December 14th, I visited Baton Rouge, and almost as 

 a matter of course. General Taylor,^ whom, if I had found 

 on a farm, instead of in a garrison, I should have thought 

 a plain and very sensible old farmer, who loved to talk 

 about the business of cultivation better than anything 

 else. From the conversation I had with him, I think that 

 he is aware that he has got a weedy row to hoe, but that 

 he will dig it through or die, and woe to the weeds that 

 come in the way of his old hoe. I also made the acquaint- 

 ance of T. B, Thorpe,^ from whom I received letters of 

 introduction to several of the editorial family of New 

 Orleans, that were afterwards of great service to me. 

 I cannot omit here the kind remembrance of Mrs. Thorpe, 

 than whom I have not met with a more pleasant acquaint- 

 ance on my list. While in company with Mrs. Thorpe, 

 the conversation turned upon an article lately published, 

 in regard to a want of proper secretiveness in the Mus- 



' See post, 155-57. 



" Thomas Bangs Thorpe, author and journalist, born March 1, 

 1815, at Westfield, Massachusetts. From 1830 to 1853 was in Lou- 

 isiana, writing, editing Whig papers in New Orleans and Baton 

 Rouge, and making political speeches. Published two books, Hive 

 of the Bee Hunter and Mysteries of the Backwoods, in 1845 and 

 1846. Removed to New York in 1853 and continued his literary 

 activities until his death on September 21, 1878. National Cyclo- 

 psedia of American Biography, 6:230 (1929). An address deliv- 

 ered before the Louisiana Agricultural and Mechanics' Associa- 

 tion is published in part in De Bow's Review, 1:161-64 (February, 

 1846). 



