In this interval my good friend and benefactor died, and I was left very disconsolate on account of my loss; for it was indeed a great loss to me. He had been a father to me, and I was like a forsaken stranger without him, though I knew the country, and the trade too, well enough, and had for some time chiefly carried on his whole business for him. Yet I seemed now at a loss; my counsellor and my chief supporter was gone, and I had no confidant to communicate myself to, on all occasions, as formerly; but there was no remedy. I was, however, in a better condition to stand alone than ever. I had a very large plantation, and had near seventy negroes and other servants. In a word, I was grown really rich, considering my first circumstances, that began as I may say with nothing; that is to say, I had nothing of stock, but I had a great beginning, for I had such a man’s friendship and support in my beginning, that indeed I needed no other stock; and if I had had £500 to have begun with, and not the assistance, advice, and countenance of such a man, I had not been in a better condition. But he promised to make a man of me; and so he did, and in one respect I may say I have merited it of him, for I brought his plantation into such order, and the government of his negroes into such a regulation, that if he had given £500 to have had it done, he would have thought his money well bestowed. His work was always in order, going forward to his mind; every thing was in a thriving posture; his servants all loved him, even negroes and all, and yet there was no such thing as a cruel punishment or severities known among them. In my own plantation it was the same thing. I wrought so upon the reason and the affections of my negroes that they served me cheerfully, and, by consequence, faithfully and diligently; when in my neighbour’s plantation there was not a week hardly passed without such horrible outcries, roarings and yellings of the servants, either under torture or in fear of it, that their negroes would, in discourse with ours, wish themselves dead and gone, as it seems they believed they should after death, into their own country.