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which had displeased me at Hordley, none had 

 made me more angry for the time, than the lie told 

 me by the chief governor, which occasioned my 

 displacing him. This fellow, who for the credit 

 of our family (no doubt) had got himself christened 

 by the name of John Lewis, had the impudence to 

 walk into my parlour just as I was preparing to go 

 to bed, and inform me, that he could not get the 

 business of the estate done. Why not? He 

 could get nobody to come to the night-work at 

 the mill, which he supposed was the consequence 

 of my indulging the negroes so much. Indeed ! 

 and where were the people who ought to come to 

 their night-work ? in the negro village ? No ; they 

 were in the hospital, and refused to come out to 

 work. Upon which I blazed up like a barrel of 

 gunpowder, and volleying out in a breath all the 

 curses that I ever heard in my life, I asked him, 

 whether any person really had been insolent enough 

 to select a whole night party from the sick people 

 in the hospital, not one of whom ought to stir out 

 of it till well ? There stood the fellow, trembling 

 and stammering, and unable to get out an answer, 

 while I stamped up and down the piazza, storming 

 and swearing, banging all the doors till the house 

 seemed ready to tumble about our ears, and doing 

 my best to out-herod Herod, till at last I ordered 

 the man to begone that instant, and get the work 

 done properly. He did not wait to be told twice, 

 and was off in a twinkling. In a quarter of an hour 



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