Holtzclaw was also shrewd enough to meet the complaints against the quality of his services with the suggestion of increased remuneration when his contract expired at the end of 1833; but General Jackson sternly wrote Andrew (his adopted son), then married and residing at the Hermitage, that he had written the ambitious overseer that he could not expect to receive more money—“that no farm in Davidson will justify it; that better to abandon farming than to keep it up for the benefit of an overseer, bringing me in debt, as it has for two years past.” Jackson, however, in line with his policy of encouraging Andrew to assume a man’s responsibility, told him that he could use his own judgment about reëngaging Holtzclaw. The upshot of this matter was that Holtzclaw passed on and a new overseer, Williams, was engaged; but he lasted only one year. The General, writing to Andrew in November, 1834, said: “I knew, the moment I saw the cultivation of the farm, that Mr. Williams was of no account; that you would have been better off without him; that he was only a screen to the negroes; know nothing about cultivation and was beholden to the negroes for instruction what to do. I am happy you will soon be clear of him.” Further in his letter he grumbled about “the worthlessness of our overseers for the last three years” and urged that in engaging a successor to Mr. Williams there be set down in writing an understanding of what the overseer should do. “Let him fully understand what he is to do, viz, to attend not only to the farm but to the spinning and weaving, to the feeding of the hands, to weighing out the meat, and to having them clothed in due season and the clothing well made by our own seamstresses; to attend to all the stock, and particularly to see that our blooded stock is taken good care of when you are absent. These things should all be enumerated in your agreement, or he may saye hereafter that nothing but what was enumerated was he bound to take the superintendence of. Remember the old adage: ‘Deal with all men as though they were rogues’; if honest you are safe, but if not then your written agreement speaks for itself.” The next man to take up the overseer’s duties was Edward Hobbs, recommended by Colonel Love as “a first-rate man.” Jackson, however, was not entirely reassured by his recommendation for in April, 1935, he wrote his son: “I fear from the weather we experience here that Mr. Hobbs has run a great risque by planting his cotton so early, as he writes me he has planted the church field in cotton and on the 13th would begin to plant the balance.” But it was not long before the General was writing: “The progress Mr. Hobbs has made shows him to be a man of judgment; that he has reduced the hands to good subordination and in doing this he has gained their confidence and attachment. Say to him that I am thus far delighted with his course and proceedings.”