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under my hands to its present bulk. To others in 
a similar situation with him it may be of equal 
utility. 
It is well known, that although the work of a 
Sugar Estate and a Coffee Estate is so very differ 
rent ; yet the system of the government of the class 
of people by whom it is performed is precisely the 
same and is reducible to that short maxim—the 
extracting the greatest possible labour by the 
easiest means, or making each individual perform 
his full duty, without exacting more than justice 
and humanity demand.— Now a Sugar Planter 
may be transferred to a Coffee Estate, and although 
he is perfectly acquainted with the knowledge of 
enforcing labour, discipline, and order, he may be 
wholly uninformed of the minutia of the culture 
and manufacture of the other article of produce. 
To such a few plain directions and explanations 
may be of use ;—but to suppose they could in 
the least benefit such as are not previously acquaint¬ 
ed with the culture of soil, and the mode of direct¬ 
ing labour, would be as absurd as to undertake 
to teach, by written precepts, the carpenter’s trade 
to a man who had never seen a saw or a hatchet; 
to make a mason of a man who had never handled a 
trowel ; or to compose a treatise on the art of tooth¬ 
drawing *; which reminds me of an anecdote of a 
very 
* By the bye, Swift has obliged us with a cure for the tooth¬ 
ache, 
