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has become more friendly. The farmers in the vicinity are very anxious to hire colored laborers and to pay them fair wages; and I have hitherto been unable to meet the demands made on me for help.

A great deal of dissatisfaction exists among the freedmen who live on the farms lately restored to their owners. They claim that as they were placed there, by the Government, they will remain until removed by the same authority. The same difficulty is also met with on Taylor Farm. Here a large number of able bodied men are occupying houses built by the Bureau, while numbers of real objects of charity in Norfolk are almost destitute of shelter. Hitherto I have not been able to clear the farm, and force alone will convince these parties that the Bureau is in earnest about this matter. This feeling of mutiny has been fanned into a flame by this indiscreet action of some few whites in Norfolk city, who assure the freedmen that they need not move, and that they will be kept where they are by orders from Washington. While such men are 

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---------- Reopened for Editing 2024-02-20 15:17:38