hospital and medical attendance at his own expense as before.

Mr. Steele, having now rent to receive and wages to pay, was obliged to
settle a new mode of accounting between the plantation and the
labourers. "He brought, therefore, all the minor crops of the
plantation, such as corn, grain of all sorts, yams, eddoes, besides rum
and molasses, into a regular cash account by weight and measure, which
he charged to the copyhold-storekeeper at market prices of the current
time, and the storekeeper paid them at the same prices to such of the
copyholders as called for them in part of wages, in whose option it was
to take either cash or goods, according to their earnings, to answer all
their wants. Rice, salt, salt fish, barrelled pork, Cork butter, flour,
bread, biscuit, candles, tobacco and pipes, and all species of clothing,
were provided and furnished from the store at the lowest market prices.
An account of what was paid for daily subsistence, and of what stood in
their arrears to answer the rents of their lands, the fines and
forfeitures for delinquencies, their head-levy and all other casual
demands, was accurately kept in columns with great simplicity, and in
books, which checked each other."

Such was the plan of Mr. Steele, and I have the pleasure of being able
to announce, that the result of it was _highly satisfactory to himself_.
In the year 1788, when only the first and second part of it had been
reduced to practice, he spoke of it thus:--"A plantation," says he, "of
between seven and eight hundred acres has been governed by fixed laws
and a Negro-court _for about five years with great success_. In this
plantation no overseer or white servant is allowed to lift his hand
against a Negro, nor can he arbitrarily order a punishment. Fixed laws
and a court or jury of their peers _keep all in order_ without the ill
effect of sudden and intemperate passions." And in the year 1790, about