THE hospitalities of this family were so far beyond their apparent income, that all strangers were astonished at them. To account for this, it must be observed that, in the first place, there was, perhaps, scarce an instance of a family possessing such uncommonly well-trained, active, and diligent slaves as those I describe. The set that were staid servants when they married, had some of them died off by the time I knew the family; but the principal roots from whence the many branches, then flourishing, sprung, yet remained. These were two women, who had come originally from Africa while very young; they were most excellent servants, and the mothers or grandmothers of the whole set, except of one white-woolled negro-man, who, in my time, sat by the chimney and made shoes for all the rest. The great pride and happiness of those sable matrons were, to bring up their children to dexterity, diligence, and obedience. Diana being determined that Maria’s children should not excel hers in any quality which was a recommendation to favour; and Maria equally resolved that her brood, in the race of excellence, should outstrip Diana’s. Never was a more fervent competition. That of Phillis and Brunetta, in the Spectator, was a trifle to it: and it was extremely difficult to decide on their respective merits; for though Maria’s son Prince cut down wood with more dexterity and despatch than any one in the province, the mighty Cæsar, son of Diana, cut down wheat, and threshed it, better than he. His sister Betty, who, to her misfortune, was a beauty of her kind, and possessed wit equal to her beauty, was the best sempstress and laundress, by far, I have ever known; and plain, unpretending Rachael, sister to Prince, wife to Titus, alias Tyte, and head cook, dressed dinners that might have pleased Apicius. I record my old humble friends by their real names, because they allowedly stood at the head of their own class, and distinction of every kind should be respected. Besides, when the curtain drops, or, indeed, long before it falls, it is, perhaps, more creditable to have excelled in the lowest parts, than to have fallen miserably short in the higher. Of the inferior personages, in this dark drama I have been characterizing, it would be tedious to tell: suffice it, that besides filling up all the lower departments of the household, and cultivating to the highest advantage a most extensive farm, there was a thorough-bred carpenter and shoemaker, and an universal genius who made canoes, nets, and paddles, shod horses, mended implements of husbandry, managed the fishing, in itself no small department, reared hemp and tobacco, and spun both; made cider, and tended wild horses, (as they called them,) which was his province to manage and to break. For every branch of the domestic economy, there was a person allotted—educated for the purpose; and this society was kept immaculate, in the same way that the quakers preserve