FLORIAN - The Most Traveled Man on Earth

Letter 14.
New Orleans, February 11, 1809
[From Jean-Baptiste Florian to his wife and four daughters, still in England]
I don’t know to what to attribute your silence, my dear friends. I am addressing you in
the plural, because I don’t know to which of you this letter will be delivered, and whether
it will even reach you at all. Mr. Clay, Mr. Kirkland’s correspondent, told me two or
three days ago that in letters written in October, it was announced to Mr. Kirkland from
London that Miss Ravencamp with my wife and my daughters were going to leave by the
first boat for New York. <strong>The</strong>re has been news from London here up through November
5. How is it then that neither Emmanuel nor I have received a single letter from any of
you? You have no idea of the worry this causes me. It would seem that all the family
must have left before the October packet, but look, it has already arrived. Is the boat
ready to leave France or has some misfortune happened to it? Truthfully, I tremble to
think about it. It should have arrived in New York two months ago, and we have letters
from that city from the end of December, but not a one from Cheriot. If you had written
me by the October packet, I would long ago have received your letters.
As regards to Miss Ravencamp, it is well that you know that according to the report of
her tutor, Mr. Kirkland, she has 20 thousand pounds sterling, Jamaica currency, which
makes 55 to 60 thousand gourdes. This, my dear friends, is for your guidance, if there is
still time. It seems to me that Peter 20 could surrender and make an approach to her. <strong>The</strong>
young lady is very attractive, and 60 thousand gourdes gives her new charms. In any
case, it would be appropriate to verify the fact though Mrs. Davison, who should know
what’s what.
I expect to leave next week to make a trip through Atacapas, ______ Natchitoches. From
there, I will go back down the Red River and will cross over to the left bank of the river
in the Spanish sector, which begins above Bayou Sara, and extends the length of the river
as far as Bayou <strong>Man</strong>chac, taking in thus, Baton Rouge, Montesano, and the country
known as “Feliciana,” which really is one of the prettiest in the world, from what I saw of
it when coming down the river. This section has the advantage of never having been
under the embargo, and though communication with Pensacola is long, it nevertheless is
very regular, since the confirmation of the embargo in the United States, so that there
they sell cotton at 15 cents, whereas here they barely get 12. Land is not expensive.
Negroes are being imported into the United States, and one can calculate that they are
netting 6 thousand [p 2] of unginned cotton, at 4 cents a pound, per head of Negroes
______ 400 gourdes, on the average. <strong>The</strong>y are working to make the [communication ?]
____ lakes by Bayou <strong>Man</strong>chac even easier and as _____ English vessels leave in great
numbers for Pensacola, it appears that cotton will climb (in price) and sell as usual for 5
cents the pound unginned, or 20 to 22 cents unginned.
20 “Peter” almost certainly refers to Pierre Renee de Segrais, brother-in-law to Jean-Baptiste. Alas for Jean-
Baptiste’s matchmaking, Pierre never married Miss Ravencamp or anyone else, and died a bachelor in
Paris, after living for several years in Calcutta, India.
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