would send from time to time to be spies upon me; that, to enable me the better in supporting these expenses, my tenants should be obliged to carry all their goods across the river to his own town-market, and pay toll on both sides, and then sell them at half value. But because we were a nasty sort of people, and that he could not endure to touch anything that we had a hand in, and, likewise, because he wanted work to employ his own folks, therefore we must send all our goods to his market just in their naturals--the milk immediately from the cow, without making into cheese or butter; the corn in the ear; the grass as it was mowed; the wool as it comes from the sheep's back; and bring the fruit upon the branch, that he might not be obliged to eat it after our filthy hands: that if a tenant carried but a piece of bread and cheese to eat by the way, or an inch of worsted to mend his stockings, he should forfeit his whole parcel: and because a parcel of rogues usually plied on the river between us, who often robbed my tenants of their goods and boats, he ordered a waterman of his to guard them, whose manner was to be out of the way till the poor wretches were plundered, then to overtake the thieves, and seize all as lawful prize to his master and himself. It would be endless to repeat a hundred other hardships he has put upon me; but it is a general rule, that whenever he imagines the smallest advantage will redound to one of his footboys by any new oppression of me and my whole family and estate, he never disputeth it a moment. All this has rendered me so very insignificant and contemptible at home, that some servants, to whom I pay the greatest wages, and many tenants, who have the most beneficial leases, are gone over to live with him, yet I am bound to continue their wages and pay their rents; by which means one-third of my income is spent on his estate, and above another third by his tolls and markets: and my poor tenants are so sunk and impoverished, that instead of maintaining me suitably to my quality, they can hardly find me clothes to keep me warm, or provide the common necessaries of life for themselves.