SETTLEMENTS ON THE DEMERARY, &C. 303 



such terms and prices as the British subjects, who were arriv- 

 ing daily, were glad to purchase at. : 



Many lots of land of two hundred and fifty acres were sold 

 for one and two hundred pounds. One indeed was even ex- 

 changed for a negro, and another was absolutely given for a 

 turkey, by which name the estate now goes, to commemo- 

 rate the anecdote of its purchase. Similar lots to these on the 

 east coast of Berbice have been sold by Mr. Blair, to whom 

 large grants were made for four, five, and six thousand 

 pounds in 1799, 1800, and 1801. 



The national slowness of the Dutch was never so completely 

 verified as in the resettlement of these colonies. They are 

 planters of the old school, and nothing whatever can divert 

 their attention from the traditional manner in which they settle 

 their estates. The system which the English have introduced, 

 insures as much cultivation in one year, as a Hollander would 

 accomplish in four. The one dashes on and prepares a hun- 

 dred acres to plant, while the other is content with twenty- 

 five ; his greatest ambition is to make his estate look like a 

 garden, while that of the Englishman is to get the greatest 

 quantity of cotton under cultivation possible, as it has been 

 found by the experience of a series of years, that the quantity, 

 and not the quality, constitutes the profit of the crop. The 

 labor which is saved by the English planters, is almost incal- 



