effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified pretty much,
I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept
us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the
manner of peoples going over to those countries to settle,
how they had a quantity of land given them by the Constitution
of the place; and if not, that it might be purchased at so easy a
rate this it was not worth naming.
I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of
planting; how with carrying over but two or three hundred
pounds value in English goods, with some servants and tools,
a man of application would presently lay a foundation for a
family, and in a very few years be certain to raise an estate.
I let him into the nature of the product of the earth; how the
ground was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase
of it was; and demonstrated to him, that in a very few years,
with such a beginning, we should be as certain of being rich
as we were now certain of being poor.
He was surprised at my discourse; for we made it the whole
subject of our conversation for near a week together, in which
time I laid it down in black and white, as we say, that it was
morally impossible, with a supposition of any reasonable good
conduct, but that we must thrive there and do very well.
Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a
sum of #300 or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good
a method it would be to put an end to our misfortunes and
restore our circumstances in the world, to what we had both
expected; and I added, that after seven years, if we lived, we
might be in a posture to leave our plantations in good hands,
and come over again and receive the income of it, and live
here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had
done so, and lived now in very good circumstances in London.
In short, I pressed him so to it, that he almost agreed to it, but
still something or other broke it off again; till at last he turned
the tables, and he began to talk almost to the same purpose of
Ireland.
He told me that a man that could confine himself to country
life, and that could find but stock to enter upon any land,
should have farms there for #50 a year, as good as were here
let for #200 a year; that the produce was such, and so rich the
land, that if much was not laid up, we were sure to live as
handsomely upon it as a gentleman of #3000 a year could do
in England and that he had laid a scheme to leave me in London,
and go over and try; and if he found he could lay a handsome
foundation of living suitable to the respect he had for me, as
he doubted not he should do, he would come over and fetch me.
I was dreadfully afraid that upon such a proposal he would
have taken me at my word, viz. to sell my little income as I
called it, and turn it into money, and let him carry it over into
Ireland and try his experiment with it; but he was too just to
desire it, or to have accepted it if I had offered it; and he
anticipated me in that, for he added, that he would go and try
his fortune that way, and if he found he could do anything at
it to live, then, by adding mine to it when I went over, we
should live like ourselves; but that he would not hazard a
shilling of mine till he had made the experiment with a little,
and he assured me that if he found nothing to be done in Ireland,
he would then come to me and join in my project for Virginia.
He was so earnest upon his project being to be tried first, that
I could not withstand him; however, he promised to let me