. Few watches in the colonies could compare
with his massive silver watch. His table was embellished with heavy
silver plate, valued at L150, on which his coat-of-arms was engraved.
Twelve negro slaves responded to his nod; he had a large corps of
bounded apprentices and dependant laborers. His mansion looked down on
twenty acres of wheat and twenty of corn; and as for his horses and
cattle they were the envy of the country. In his last year thirty horses
were his, fourteen oxen, sixty steers, forty-eight cows and two
bulls.[26] He lived high, drank, swore, cheated--and administered
justice.

One of the best and most intimate descriptions of a somewhat
contemporaneous landed magnate in the South is that given of Robert
Carter, a Virginia planter, by Philip Vickers Fithian,[27] a tutor in
Carter's family. Carter came to his estate from his grandfather, whose
land and other possessions were looked upon as so extensive that he was
called "King" Carter.

Robert Carter luxuriated in Nomini Hall, a great colonial mansion in
Westmoreland County. It was built between 1725 and 1732 of brick covered
with strong mortar, which imparted a perfectly white exterior, and was
seventy-six feet long and forty wide. The interior was one of unusual
splendor for the time, such as only the very rich could afford. There
were eight large rooms, one of which was a ball-room thirty feet long.
Carter spent most of his leisure hours cultivating the study of law and
of music; his library contained 1,500 volumes and he had a varied
assortment of musical instruments. He was the owner of 60,000 acres of
land spread over almost every county of Virginia, and he was the master
of six hundred negro slaves. The greater part of a prosperous iron-works
near Baltimore was owned by him, and near his mansion he built a flour
mill equipped to turn out 25,000 bushels of wheat a year. Carter was not
only one of the big planters but one of the big capitalists of the age;
all that he had to do was to exercise a general supervision; his
overseers saw to the running of his various industries. Like the other
large landholders he was one of the active governing class; as a member
of the Provincial Council he had great influence in the making of laws.
He was a thorough gentleman, we are told, and took good care of his
slaves and of his white laborers who were grouped in workhouses and
little cottages within range of his mansion. Within his domain he
exercised a sort of