agreeable
enough in her person; spoke very handsomely, and to the purpose; always
with decency and good manners, and not backward to speak when any thing
required it, or impertinently forward to speak when it was not her
business; very handy and housewifely in any thing that was before her;
an excellent manager, and fit indeed to have been governess to the whole
island; she knew very well how to behave herself to all kind of folks
she had about her, and to better if she had found any there.

The match being proposed in this manner, we married them the same day:
and as I was father at the altar, as I may say, 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 me, to give him a small property in
the island, put me upon parcelling it out among them, that they might
not quarrel afterwards about their situation.

This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who indeed was
now grown a most sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed,
exceeding pious and religious, and as far as I may be allowed to speak
positively in such a case, I verily believe was a true sincere 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 to them, 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
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 but odd to have seven-and-thirty Indians live in a nook of the
island, independent, and indeed unemplo