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 hear from him
in a very little time af