AN HONOURABLE FRIEND. 835

for putting me in possession, but would find a very considerable
sum of money in their hands for my account; being the produce
of the farm while their fathers held the trust, and before it was
given up as above, which, as he remembered, was for about twelve
years.

I showed myself a little concerned and uneasy at this account,
and inquired of the old captain how it came to pass that the
trustees should thus dispose of my effects when he knew that I
had made my will, and had made him, the Portuguese captain,
my universal heir, dc.

He told me that was true; but that, as there was no proof of
my being dead, he could not act as executor until some certain
account should come of my death, and that, besides, he was not
willing to intermeddle with a thing so remote; that it was true
he had registered my will, and put in his claim; and could he
have given any account of my being dead or alive, he would have
acted by procuration, and taken possession of the ingenio (so they
called the sugar-house), and had given his son, who was now at
the Brazils, order to do it.

“ But,” says the old man, “I have one piece of news to tell
you, which perhaps may not be so acceptable to you as the rest,
and that is, that believing you were lost, and all the world be-
lieving so also, your partner and trustees did offer to account to
me in your name for six or eight of the first years of profits, which
I received; but there being at that time,” says he, “ great disburse-
ments for increasing the works, building an zngenio, and buying
slaves, it did not amount to near so much as afterwards it produced.
However,” says the old man, “I shall give you a true account of
what I have received in all, and how I have disposed of it.”

After a few days’ further conference with this ancient friend, he
brought me an account of the six first years’ income of my planta-
tion, signed by my partner and the merchants’ trustees, being
always delivered in goods, namely, tobacco in roll, and sugar in
chests, besides rum, molasses, d&c., which is the consequence of a
sugar work; and I found by his account that every year the ‘in-
come considerably increased, but, as above, the disbursement being

large, the sum at first was small. However, the old man let me
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