In a letter dated Savannah, December 11, 1788, to Colonel Thomas Proctor, of Philadelphia, Leake says: "I have been this year an adventurer--and the first that has attempted it on a large scale--in introducing a new staple for the planting interests--the article of cotton--samples of which I beg leave now to send you and request you will lay them before the Philadelphia Society for Encouraging Manufactures, that the quality may be inspected. Several here, as well as in North Carolina, have followed me and tried the experiment, and it is likely to answer our most sanguine expectations. I shall raise about five thousand pounds in the seed from eight acres of land, and next year I intend to plant about fifty to one hundred acres if suitable encouragement is given. The principal difficulty that arises to us is the cleansing it from the seed, which I am told they do with great dexterity and ease in Philadelphia with gins or machines made for the purpose. I am told they make those that will clean thirty to forty pounds clean cotton in a day and upon very simple construction." The first attempt in South Carolina to produce Sea Island cotton was made in 1788 by Mrs. Kinsey Burden at Burden's Island. As early as 1779 the short staple was produced by her husband, whose negroes were clothed in homespun cotton cloth. Mrs. Burden's efforts failed. The plants did not mature, and this was attributed to the seed, which was of the Bourbon variety. The first successful variety appears to have been grown by William Elliot on Hilton Head, near Beaufort, in 1790, with five and one-half bushels of seed, which he bought in Charleston and for which he paid fourteen shillings a bushel. He sold his crop for ten and one-half pence a pound. In 1791 John Scriven, of St. Luke's Parish, planted thirty to forty acres on St. Mary's River. He sold it for from one shilling twopence to one shilling sixpence per pound. It is certain that at this period many planters on the Sea Islands and contiguous mainland experimented with long-staple cotton, and probably it was produced by them for market. One of the earliest reports of export of cotton from the colonies is a bill of lading which certifies that on July 20, 1751, Henry Hansen shipped, "in good order and well conditioned, in and upon the good snow called the Mary, whereof is master under God, for this present voyage, Barnaby Badgers, and now riding in the harbor of New York, and by God's grace bound for London--to say--eighteen bales of cotton-wool, being marked and numbered as in the margin, and are to be delivered in like good order and conditioned, at the aforesaid port of London--the danger of the sea only excepted--unto Messrs. Horke and Champior or their assigns, he or they paying freight for the said goods, three farthings per pound, primage and average accustomed."