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If you have not suitable men already on the ground competent and willing to do it, I can easily find such, who would at a fair compensation - But I can have nothing to do about paying them.

In short, I am prepared to take charge of and place in good homes as many as may be put in my hands, free of all cost to me - on condition, if any are sick on their arrival here, or prove incompetent to any place, the cost of taking care of them or of returning them to the South shall be borne by The Department.

As to my compensation, - my idea is about this - The business is very precarious.  I am liable from political charges and other causes to be removed, at any time - and even if I am not, - the work is but a temporary one at the longest.

It breaks up my plans for future avocations, and in a measure secularizes my character and injures it.  For I shall be liable to abuse and even personal violence, - and every clergyman who gets in that position suffers in reputation.

Expenses for rent, advertisements, clerk hire, and other incidentals, will soon be run up to hundreds and even thousands, of dollars.

So that unless I can realize a fair salary I could not do the work at all, and if it should afford more than that, I should want it - In plainer words, if I can make any money, fairly and honorably out of the perplexities and toils of the operation, I wish to do so.  If a large number are sent up, I can venture on it, but I have no money to advance in sending an agent South, nor to risque in any uncertainty as to whether the Freedpeople will actually come or not - I dare not advertise them again till a vessel is at the wharf. One failure would damage the business most seriously - and ruin me -

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