these concise words, _they were given in allowance to the Negroes and
stock_. Every year, for six years past, this great plantation has
bought several hundred bushels of corn, and was scanty in all
ground-provisions, our produce always falling short. This year, 1790,
_since the establishment of copyholders, though several less acres were
planted_ last year in Guinea corn than usual, yet we have been able to
sell _several hundred bushels_ at a high price, and _we have still a
great stock in hand_. I can place this saving to no other account, than
that there is now an exact account kept by all produce being paid as
cash to the bond-slaves; and also as all our watchmen are obliged to pay
for all losses that happen on their watch, they have found it their
interest to look well to their charge; and consequently that we have
had much less stolen from us than before this new government took
place."

Here then we have seen _another considerable source of saving_ to Mr.
Steele, viz. that _he was not obliged to purchase any corn for his
slaves as formerly_. My readers will be able to judge better of this
saving, when I inform them of what has been the wretched policy of many
of our planters in this department of their concerns. Look over their
farming memoranda, and you will see _sugar, sugar, sugar_, in every
page; but you may turn over leaf after leaf, before you will find the
words _provision ground_ for their slaves. By means of this wretched
policy, slaves have often suffered most grievously. Some of them have
been half-starved. Starvation, too, has brought on disorders which have
ultimately terminated in their death. Hence their masters have suffered
losses, besides the expense incurred in buying what they ought to have
raised upon their own estates, and this perhaps at a dear market: and in
this wretched predicament Mr. Steele appears to have been himself when
he first went to the estate. His slaves, he tells us, had been reduced