But we have not yet done. Besides this extraordinary portion of benevolence, this rare manager must have some other qualities not less uncommon. He must not only have the firmness to dare to be singular, and to expose himself to the imputation of wishing to be thought to have more humanity than his neighbours, a sort of courage the most difficult of all to be found in our days; but, above all, he must resist the consciousness, that in return for all his humane exertions he may be misrepresented to his employer; that, having acquired the character of a visionary schemer, who sends home comparatively small returns, and calls for great expences, he may, in consequence of such representations, be dismissed from his present office, and in vain solicit another. To find such a man, of so much benevolence, combined with so much resolute integrity, must be acknowledged to be no common occurrence. That such a man should be in the precise situation of overseer of a West Indian estate we should still less expect; and that this rare manager should meet with this more than commonly benevolent owner, is a still more curious coincidence. Yet all these expectations must be realized, for an Absentee’s plantation to be regulated as it ought to be, under the present circumstances of the West Indies. This subject is of such primary practical importance, that I must still be permitted to add one word more. Any man who will consider what his own feelings and temptations would be likely to be, were he the absentee Proprietor of a West Indian estate, will acknowledge the force of my reasoning; and they who may see no reason to suspect themselves, will be precisely those, concerning whom all other men would be apt to entertain the strongest suspicions. Were we ourselves West Indian proprietors, we naturally should wish that the income of our estate might be as large, and the outgoings as small as might be; and though in a benevolent, or rather let me call it, a just mind, this wish would be qualified by the understood condition, that the Slaves should be sufficiently provided for; yet, ever allowing most honourable exceptions to the contrary, that which would in general constitute a manager’s recommendation, which would obtain him a character, would be his increasing the clear profits of the estate. All this depends on principles of universal, infallible, and constant operation. It was the case in Mr. Long’s time. He pointed out to the West Indian Proprietors, in the strongest terms, the mischief done by “overseers,[35] whose chief aim it was to raise to themselves a character as able planters, by increasing the produce of the respective estates; this is too frequently attempted, by forcing the Negroes to labour beyond their abilities; of course, they drop off, and if not recruited incessantly, the gentleman steals away, like a rat from a barn in flames, and carries the credit of great plantership, and vast crops