His discourse was very prettily delivered, considering his youth, and was
the more agreeable to me, because he told me positively the match was not
for himself. I gave him all possible assurances that if I lived to come
safe to England, I would deliver his letters, and do his business
effectually; and that he might depend I should never forget the
circumstances I had left him in. But still I was impatient to know who
was the person to be married; upon which he told me it was my Jack-of-all-
trades and his maid Susan. I was most agreeably surprised when he named
the match; for, indeed, I thought it very suitable. The character of
that man I have given already; and as for the maid, she was a very
honest, modest, sober, and religious young woman: had a very good share
of sense, was agreeable enough in her person, spoke very handsomely and
to the purpose, always with decency and good manners, and was neither too
backward to speak when requisite, nor impertinently forward when it was
not her business; very handy and housewifely, and an excellent manager;
fit, indeed, to have been governess to the whole island; and she knew
very well how to behave in every respect.
The match being proposed in this manner, we married them the same day;
and as I was father at the altar, and gave her away, so I gave her a
portion; for I appointed her and her husband a handsome large space of
ground for their plantation; and indeed this match, and the proposal the
young gentleman made to give him a small property in the island, put me
upon parcelling it out amongst them, that they might not quarrel
afterwards about their situation.
This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who was now
grown a sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed, exceedingly
pious and religious; and, as far as I may be allowed to speak positively
in such a case, I verily believe he was a true penitent. He divided
things so justly, and so much to every one's satisfaction, that they only
desired one general writing under my hand for the whole, which I caused
to be drawn up, and signed and sealed, setting out the bounds and
situation of every man's plantation, and testifying that I gave them
thereby severally a right to the whole possession and inheritance of the
respective plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and
their heirs, reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and
a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years, if I,
or any one from me, or in my name, came to demand it, producing an
attested copy of the same writing. As to the government and laws among
them, I told them I was not capable of giving them better rules than they
were able to give themselves; only I made them promise me to live in love
and good neighbourhood with one another; and so I prepared to leave them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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