in number by bad management. Even for six years afterwards he had been
obliged to buy several hundred bushels of corn; but in the year 1790 he
had sold several hundred bushels at a high price, and had still a great
stock on hand. And to what was all this owing? Not to an exact account
kept at the store (for some may have so misunderstood Mr. Steele); for
how could an exact account kept there, have occasioned an increase in
the produce of the earth? but, as Mr. Steele himself says, _to the
establishment of his copyholders_, or to the _alteration of the
condition_ of his slaves. His slaves did not only three times more work
than before, in consequence of the superior industry he had excited
among them, but, by so doing, they were enabled to put the corn into the
earth three times more quickly than before, or they were so much
forwarder in their other work, that they were enabled to sow it at the
critical moment, or so as _to save the season_, and thus secure a full
crop, or a larger crop on a less number of acres, than was before raised
upon a greater. The copyholders, therefore, were the persons who
increased the produce of the earth; but the exact account kept at the
store prevented the produce from being misapplied as formerly. It could
no longer be put down in the general expression of "given in allowances
to the Negroes and the stock;" but it was put down to the copyholder,
and to him only, who received it. Thus Mr. Steele saved the purchase of
a great part of the provisions for his slaves. He had formerly a great
deal to buy for them, but now nothing. On the other hand, he had to
sell; but, as his slaves were made, according to the new system, to
_maintain themselves_, he had now _the whole produce of his estate to_
_dispose of_. The circumstance therefore of having nothing to buy, but
every thing to sell, constituted another source of his profits.

What the other particular profits of Mr. Steele were I can no where
find, neither can I find what were his particular expenses; so as to be