This goes in the English Minister's bag, and will reach you on the 20th or 29th of October, I reckon, I saw the Empress yesterday, and arranged about my office and a land-office, at the head of which I asked her to place Magruder,[1] with a salary of $3000, which she did.
He will probably have a large force of surveyors under him, all or most of them Confederates. . . .
Keep up your spirits, my dear wife.
"Cousin."
From M. F. Maury to his Wife.
| Office of Colonization, | |
| My dear Wife, | Mexico, Nov. 27th, 1865. |
Dick is a great help and comfort to me. Bless his heart, he wins upon me every day: so crippled yet so patient, so devoted to his new duties, and so hard-working, he surprises and delights me with his business tact and capacity. He is so handsome too, and in his new clothes looks, as he is, every inch a gentleman. He was consulting me to-day about buying some Cordova lands. I have it in my mind to bring Corbin here and induce him to settle upon them; and though I believe he and Nannie would come, if I had urged them, yet, in the face of so much opposition, I had not the heart to do it.
In the olden times, Cordova was the garden spot of New Spain. There stands on one side, and but a little way off, the Peak of Orizaba, with its cap of everlasting snow, and on the other the sea in full view. These lands were heavily in debt to the Church, and as the Church property has been confiscated (not by the Emperor, though) Max. took possession of these lands for colonization. The railway hence to Vera Cruz passes right through them; and I am now selling these lands to immigrants, as fast as they can be surveyed, at $1 the acre on 5 years' credit. There are about 40 of our people already there. Perkins has bought himself a house and has sent for his family; so has Shelby, and so have a number of
- ↑ General C. S. A.
