If I met with a sullen, stupid fellow, as sometimes it was unavoidable, I always parted with him and sold him off; for I would not keep any that sense of kind usage would not oblige. But I seldom met with such bad ones; for, by talking to them in a plain reasoning way, I found the temper of the roughest of them would break and soften. The sense of their own interest would prevail with them at first or last; and if it had not, the contrary temper was so general among my people that their own fellows and countrymen would be against them, and that served to bring them to reason as soon as any other thing. And this those who think it worth their while will easily find, viz., that having prevailed effectually over one leading man among them to be tractable, and pleased, and grateful, he shall make them all like him, and that in a little while, with more ease than can be imagined. I was now a planter, and also a student. My pedagogue I mentioned above was very diligent, and proved an extraordinary man indeed. He taught me not only with application, but with admirable judgment in the teaching part; for I have seen it in many instances since that time that every good scholar is not fitted for a schoolmaster, and that the art of teaching is quite different from that of knowing the language taught. But this man had both, and proved of great use to me, and I found reason, in the worth of the person, to be very kind to him, his circumstances considered. I once took the liberty to ask him how it came to pass that he, who must have had a liberal education and great advantages to have advanced him in the world, should be capable of falling into such miserable circumstances as he was in when he came over. I used some caution in entering upon an inquiry which, as I said, might not be pleasant to him to relate, but that I would make him amends by telling him, that if he desired not to enter into it with me, I would readily excuse him, and would not take it ill at all. This I did because to a man under such afflictions one should always be tender, and not put them upon relating anything of themselves which was grievous to them or which they had rather was concealed.