47 Life of a Southern Planter (1686)
Sir, I have no new matter to add only I would have you be very careful of my flax, hemp, and hayseed, two bushels of each of which I have sent for because we have now resolved a cessation of making Tobacco next year. We are also going to make Towns. If you can meet with any tradesmen that will come in and live at the Town, they may have large privileges and immunities. I would have you to bring me in a good Housewife. I do not intend or mean to be brought in as the ordinary servants are, but to pay her passage and agree to give her fifty shillings or three pound a year during the space of five years. Upon which terms I suppose good Servants may be had, because they have their passage clear and as much wages as they can have there. I would have a good one or none. I look upon the generality of wenches you usually bring in not worth the keeping.
Sir: Both yours I have received by Capt. Paine, am glad of yours, sorry you came to no better market. I hope this year Tobacco will rise by reason there’s but small crops made throughout this country and Maryland too. I have got ready the Tobacco I owe you which when your brother comes or any one by your order may receive. We now look out every day for his arrival by whom I intend to ship thirty or forty hh [hundredweight]. Crops are so small and debts come in so badly that I cannot send so much as I thought by twenty hh, but what I do send is pretty good. What friends I can advise shall assuredly secure you. Mr. Scarlet has promised me to consign you twenty hh and I believe shall get you some more this year . . . I have ventured on a bargain of 20 £ Sterling for two negroes of Mr. Vincent Goddard for which I have drawn bills of Exchange upon you, which please give due acceptance . . .
Sir, I have given you an account of eleven hh [hogsheads, large barrels] Tobacco consigned to you together with several bills of Exchange to the value of 31 £ Sterling. I desire your care in sending me in those things I sent for and do now send for, which are for my own particular use. Therefore I desire you to take care in the goodness of them. If you could possibly procure me a Bricklayer or Carpenter or both, it would do me a great kindness and save me a great deal of money in my present building and I should be willing to advance something extraordinary for the procuration of them or either of them. If you send in any tradesmen be sure send in their tools with them.
Sir, your promise to assist me in the purchase of those Negroes I requested you to buy for me, only desire farther advice and more particular directions which I shall now do. I desired you in my former [letter] to buy me five or six, whereof three or four to be boys, a man and woman or men and women. The boys from eight to seventeen or eighteen, the rest as young as you can procure them. For price I cannot direct therein because boys according to their age and growth are valued in price. What remains I will hereafter take care honestly to pay but hope you will make me some abatement for your Dumb Negro that you sold me. Had she been a new Negro, I must have blamed my fate not you. But one that you had two years, I must conclude you knew her qualities, which is bad at work worse at talking, and took the opportunity of the Softness of my Messenger to quit your hands of her. I will freely give you the £ 3, 5, 0, overplus of £ 20 that he gave for her to take her again and will get her conveyed to your hands or hope if my offer be not acceptable you will make me some abatement of so bad a bargain.
By a Stranger who had once occasion to buy some books of you, I had a relation of your living and thriving. Therefore [I] take this first conveniency of congratulating you. And of a respectful obedient and loving remembrance of all friends and relations there and desire not only by you to hear how they all do but intreat you to desire them to write to me than nothing would be more welcome or acceptable. Especially from my mother, brothers and Sister, uncles and Cousins and as many of them as are living and would be so kind to write. I have a long time in a strange land struggled hard with fortune’s adverse hand. And I praise God live very contentedly and well and should be heartily glad of that communication, which this Distance admits of, by letters to hear from you and all friends there.
God Almighty has been pleased to bless me with a very good wife and five pledges of our conjugal affection [children], three of which he has been pleased to call into the Arms of his Mercy and lent me two [two survived], a hopeful boy and girl. And as he has been pleased to dispense these his choicest of blessings he has likewise added a plentiful Dispensation of his favors in giving me a competent subsistence to support myself and them comfortably and handsomely. For my Sister, if she cannot otherwise better herself, I should be heartily glad of her good company. With an Assurance she shall never want as long as I have it to supply her. And if her inclination be to come I would desire and entreat you that she come out handsomely and genteelly and well-clothed, with a maid to wait on her and both their passage paid there.
As first the Plantation where I now live contains a thousand acres, at least 700 acres of it being rich thicket, the remainder good hearty plantable land without any waste either by marshes or great swamps. Upon it there is three quarters well furnished with all necessary houses, grounds, and fencing, together with a choice crew of negros at each plantation. Most of them this Country born, the remainder as likely as most in Virginia, there being twenty-nine in all, with stocks of cattle and hogs at each quarter. Upon the same land is my own Dwelling house furnished with all accommodations for a comfortable and genteel living, as a very good dwelling house. With rooms in it, four of the best of them hung and nine of them plentifully furnished with all things necessary and convenient. And all houses for use furnished with brick chimneys, four good Cellars, a Dairy, Dovecote, Stable, Barn, Henhouse, Kitchen, and all other conveniences. And all in a manner new, a large Orchard of about 2,500 Apple trees, most grafted, well fenced with a Locust fence which is as durable as most brick walls. A Garden a hundred foot square, well paled [fenced] in, a Yard wherein is most of the aforesaid necessary houses. Palisaded in with locust Punchens, which is as good as if it were walled in and more lasting than any of our bricks. Together with a good Stock of Cattle, hogs, horses, mares, sheep, &c, and necessary servants belonging to it, for the supply and support thereof. About a mile and a half distant a good water Grist mill whose toll I find sufficient to find my own family with wheat and Indian corn for our necessities and occasions. Up the River in this country three tracts of land more. One of them contains 21,996 acres, another 500 acres, and one other 1000 acres, all good convenient and commodious Seats and which in few years will yield a considerable annual Income. A stock of Tobacco with the crops of about 250,000 lb. besides sufficient of almost all sorts of goods to supply the family’s and the Quarter’s occasion for two if not three years. I thus deduce the yearly crops of Corn and Tobacco together with the surplusage of meat more than will serve the family’s use, will amount annually to 60,000 lb. Tobacco which at 10 shillings per comes to 300 £ per annum. And the negroes’ increase being all young and a considerable parcel of breeders will keep that stock good forever. The stock of Tobacco managed with an inland trade will yearly yield 60,000 lb. Tobacco without hazard or risk, which will be both clear without charge of housekeeping or disbursements for servants clothing. The Orchard in a very few years will yield a large supply to plentiful housekeeping or if better husbanded yield at least 10,000 Tobacco annual income.
Source: Life of a Southern Planter (1686), by William Fitzhugh, in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography (Richmond, VA), I, 30-396. https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.45493/page/n321/mode/2up
