t her business; very handy and housewifely, and an excellent manager;
fit, indeed, to have been governess to the whole island; and she knew
very well how to behave in every respect.

The match being proposed in this manner, we married them the same day;
and as I was father at the altar, and gave her away, so I gave her a
portion; for I appointed her and her husband a handsome large space of
ground for their plantation; and indeed this match, and the proposal the
young gentleman made to give him a small property in the island, put me
upon parcelling it out amongst them, that they might not quarrel
afterwards about their situation.

This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who was now
grown a sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed, exceedingly
pious and religious; and, as far as I may be allowed to speak positively
in such a case, I verily believe he was a true penitent. He divided
things so justly, and so much to every one's satisfaction, that they only
desired one general writing under my hand for the whole, which I caused
to be drawn up, and signed and sealed, setting out the bounds and
situation of every man's plantation, and testifying that I gave them
thereby severally a right to the whole possession and inheritance of the
respective plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and
their heirs, reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and
a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years, if I,
or any one from me, or in my name, came to demand it, producing an
attested copy of the same writing. As to the government and laws among
them, I told them I was not capable of giving them better rules than they
were able to give themselves; only I made them promise me to live in love
and good neighbourhood with one another; and so I prepared to leave them.

One thing I must not omit, and that is, that being now settled in a kind
of commonwealth among themselves, and having much business in hand, it
was odd to have seven-and-thirty Indians live in a nook of the island,
independent, and, indeed, unemployed; for except the providing themselves
food, which they had difficulty enough to do sometimes, they had no
manner of business or property to manage. I proposed, therefore, to the
governor Spaniard that he should go to them, with Friday's father, and
propose to them to remove, and either plant for themselves, or be taken
into their several families as serv