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from Hampton, are not yet restored. Upon these farms the poorer people have been placed from time to time as it became necessary to remove them from lands restored. A small rental is assessed to them, little of which can be collected.

General Armstrong is a most excellent officer, and is using remarkable energy in distributing these people. The freedmen are not leaving in large companies, but there is a steady emigration going on. They are decidedly averse to going south, but are willing to go to northern cities, or to any counties within the state.

During the last year, twenty one hundred & nineteen (2,119) left this country. In the month of January ninety (90) men were furnished with horses and left, most of that month travel was so obstructed, that many who desired could not get away. Up to the 15th of this month transportation was asked for three hundred (300). There are also two hundred and fifty (250) waiting for means of transportation to Boston. A fair working population of this county is estimated at thirty five hundred (3,500): means of support, by farming, fishing, and labor about government works, could be found for that number. This leaves a surplus population of about three thousand (3,000) at present.

I recommend that transportation be granted very liberally from this point, and that the rules regulating it be relaxed to apply only to this district and Princess Ann County. I am satisfied that General Armstrong