Within six months Jackson was writing to his adopted son expressing apprehension lest Steele was not giving the negroes proper attention; and before the year was out was again writing to the son at Nashville to investigate the cause for “the great loss of horses and oxen.” Evidently conditions did not improve, for in November the General wrote a sharp letter to Steele in which he took him severely to task for “the great losses in stock and negroes I have lost since I left my plantation under your charge and management.” In blunt terms he said: “I have been truly astonished to hear my bacon was nearly gone. This to me was unaccountable, because I stood by and saw a large supply as usual for my white and black family salted in my smoke house. In your statement I have asked you to forward I shall expect you to furnish me with an explanation of how this happened. I have been advised by some not to continue you, by others to try you another year. The latter I have concluded to do so, as I am aware the injury it would be to you to leave the business under present rumors. But when I say I have concluded to retain you another year, it is with the express condition that you treat my negroes with humanity and attention when sick and not work them too hard when well, that you feed and clothe them well, and that you carefully attend to my stock of all kinds. This I have a right to expect of you for the wages I give you. I have been offered here a first-rate overseer for $350 a year. I have been offered in Tennessee a well experienced and well recommended overseer for $400. I give you $500, which is equal to $1000 when cotton was at 14 cents a pound.” Steele evidently did not accept this rebuke in very good spirit, for in January Colonel Love wrote Jackson that “Steele said he wrote you as he could not please you you had better look out for some other person.” Colonel Love volunteered the view, however, that “He in my opinion has not the least intention of going away. I am confident your last letter will make him the more particular and attentive to your orders.” Colonel Love proved to be a good prophet, for Steele held on to his job through 1832; but at the beginning of 1833 he was succeeded by Burnard W. Holtzclaw. Holtzclaw was only a fairly satisfactory overseer, and gave frequent cause for complaint from his absentee employer; but the Jackson letter files reveal some communications from him which stamp him as one of the earliest converts to the cause of simplified spelling. On March 6, 1833, he wrote the General: