charge, in great detail. Stuart is competent, sober and
industrious, but talkative and conceited. "If he stirs early and works
late ... his talkativeness and vanity may be humored." Crow is active
and possessed of good judgment, but overly fond of "visiting and
receiving visits." McKoy is a "sickly, slothful and stupid fellow."
Butler, the gardener, may mean well, but "he has no more authority over
the Negroes he is placed over than an old woman would have." Ultimately
he dismissed Butler on this ground, but as the man could find no other
job he was forced to give him assistance. The owner's opinions of Davy,
the colored overseer at Muddy Hole Farm, and of Thomas Green, the
carpenter, are given elsewhere.

In the same letter he exhorted Pearce to see what time the overseers
"turn out of a morning--for I have strong suspicions that this, with
some of them, is at a late hour, the consequences of which to the
Negroes is not difficult to foretell. All these Overseers as you will
perceive by their agreements, which I here with send, are on standing
wages; and this with men who are not actuated by the principles of honor
or honesty, and not very regardful of their characters, leads naturally
to endulgences--as _their_ profits whatever may be _mine_, are the same
whether they are at a horse race or on the farm."

From the above it will appear that he did not believe that the overseers
were storing up any large treasury of good works. In the Revolution he
wrote that one overseer and a confederate, "I believe, divide the
profits of my Estate on the York River, tolerably between them, for the
devil of anything do I get." Later he approved the course of George A.
Washington in depriving an overseer of the privilege of killing four
shoats, as this gave him an excuse when caught killing a pig to say that
it was one of those to which he was entitled. Even when honest, the
overseers were likely to be careless. They often knew little about the
stock under their charge and in making their weekly reports would take
the number from old reports instead of actually making the count, with
the result that many animals could die or disappear long before those in
charge became aware of it.

[Illustration: Part of Manger's Weekly Report]

Washington's carpenters were mostly slaves, but he usually hired a
white man to oversee and direct them. In 1768, for example, he engaged
for this purpose a certain Jonathan Palmer, who was to receive forty