128 
PROGRESS TO THE MINES. 
that quantity suffice at Fredericksville. That if all these circumstances 
should happily concur, and you could procure honest colliers and firemen, 
which will be difficult to do, you may easily run eight hundred tons of sov/ 
iron a year. The whole charge of freight, custom, commission, and other 
expenses in England, will not exceed thirty shillings a ton, and it will com- 
monly sell for six pounds, and then the clear profit will amount to four 
pounds and ten shillings. So that allowing the ten shillings for accidents, 
you may reasonably expect a clear profit of four pounds, which being multi- 
plied by eight hundred, will amount to three thousand two hundred pounds a 
year, to pay you for your land and negroes. But then it behooved me to be 
fully informed of the whole matter myself, to prevent being imposed upon ; 
and if any offered to put tricks upon me, to punish them as they deserve. 
Thus ended our conversation for this day, and I retired to a very clean 
lodging in another house, and took my bark, but was forced to take it in 
water, by reason a light fingered damsel had ransacked my baggage, and 
drunk up my brandy. This unhappy girl, it seems, is a baronet’s daughter; 
but her complexion, being red-haired, inclined her so much to lewdness, that 
her father sent her, under the care of the virtuous Mr. Cheep, to seek her for- 
tune on this side the globe. 
24th. My friend, Mr. Chiswell, made me reparation for the robbery of his 
servant, by filling my bottle again with good brandy. It being Sunday, I 
made a motion for going to church, to see the growth of the parish, but un- 
luckily the sermon happened to be at the chapel, which was too far off. r' I 
was unwilling to tire my friend with any farther discourse upon iron, and 
therefore turned the conversation to other subjects. And talking of manage- 
ment, he let me into two secrets worth remembering. He said the quickest 
way in the world to stop the fermentation of any liquor was to keep a light- 
ed match of brimstone under the cask for some time. This is useful in so 
warm a country as this, where cider is apt to work itself off both of 
its strength and sweetness. The other secret was to keep w^eevils out of 
wheat and other grain. You have nothing to do, said he, but to put a bag 
of pepper into every heap, or cask, which those insects have such an anti- 
pathy to that they will not approach it. These, receipts he gave me, not 
upon report, but upon his own repeated experience. He farther told me he 
had brewed as good ale of malt made of Indian corn as ever he tasted ; 
all the objection was, he could neither by art, or standing, ever bring it to 
be fine in the cask. The quantity of corn he employed in brewing a cask 
of forty gallons was two bushels and a half, which made it very strong and 
pleasant. We had a haunch of venison for dinner, as fat and well tasted as 
if it had come out of Richmond park. In these upper parts of the country 
the deer are in better case than below, though I believe the buck which gave 
us so good a dinner had eaten out his value in peas, which wall make deer ex- 
ceedingly fat. In the afternoon, I walked with my friend to his mill, which 
is half a mile from house. It is built upon a rock very firmly, so that it 
is more apt to suffer by too little water, (the run not being over plentiful,) 
than too much. On the other side of this stream lie several of Col. Jones’ 
plantations. The poor negroes upon them are a kind of Adamites, very 
scantily supplied with clothes and other necessaries ; nevertheless, (which is 
a little incomprehensible,) they continue in perfect health, and none of them 
die, except it be of age. However, they are even wnth their master, and 
make him but indifferent crops, so that he gets nothing by his unjustice, but 
the scandal of it. And here I must make one remark, which I am a little 
unwilling to do for fear of encouraging of cruelty, that those negroes which 
are kept the barest of clothes and bedding are commonly the freest from 
sickness. And this happens, I suppose, by their being all face, and therefore 
