ava honest men) who made no remittances at all, though some of them had it in their power to make large ones. The greedy vultures! ricious sycophants! dishonestly revelled in excess and debauchery, until the properties they were intrusted with were totally squandered, or so involved, that they were not worth retrieving. When a man is appointed executor, he gets two or three of his own friends to appraise the estate, (previouslyembezzling every article he possibly can with fecrecy) and takes it at the valuation, and makes no remittance until he is compelled by law, by those heirs who may be far away, and may not hear of their friend's death for several years; or he brings it to fale, after having taken the chiefeft and choicest of the effects at the valuation, and purchases it, and then makes no remittance at all for four or five years, so that the crops, or interest of the money, pays for the eftate; I do assure you, that many mighty men in councils and assemblies, all over the West Indies, have acquired all their greatness by such ignoble schemes. 1 "Such mighty heroes that were pigmies born, An attorney to an estate, or plantation, has a weighty charge; if he was to act fair and honeft, he should vifit the plantation frequently, pry into every hole and corner of it, and furprize the manager when he least expected his coming, to fee how L how he passed the time, and cultivated the estate; whether it was loitered in riotous diffipation, with the neighbouring managers, or spent induftriously attentive to his duty; nor should he be deceived by clean intervals, pleasant walks, or artificial work of any kind; he should walk across and through the cane pieces all over the plantation, and see that they were properly weeded, moulded, hoed and thrashed; for nanagers are knowing, and artful, and when they supinely pass away time, they commonly prepare for the attorney's coming by trashing the canes seven or eight yards deep along the intervals, and making other deceptions and preparations. An attorney should fee that the work went regularly on in rotation; that the ground was holed in proper time and season, and the canes planted accordingly; he should be a parent to the whole estate, slaves, cattle, mules, and other stock; he should visit the boiling-house frequently; stand at the tack whole hours, at times, to see how the boilers went on, and when they went wrong direct them and set them right; he should not support managers without merit, to ferve his friends, or relations, but prefer the industrious book-keepers or overseers in his own employment, whose merits and long painful fervitude deserved it; in short, any man who prefumes to be an attorney, should have gone through all the painful toils and drudgeries of an oversfeer, for three or four years, and be an experienced planter, 1 70 1 planter, to be capable of doing justice; formerly there were a few honest impartial attornies in Jamaica, such as Sheckle, Beckford, Winde, &c. though originally indented servants, who could not boast of families or connections, who acted with strict integrity, and kept the cowskin herd of managers under them attentive early and late to their duty. A man by lending a small sum of money to a planter in distress, may get the attorneyship of his plantation, and a mortgage thereon by way of security; and it often happens in the end, that the mortgagee poffesses himself of the whole estate, whilst the mortgager reflects with horror on his extravagance and folly. It would be vastly better for a planter, when distressed to answer any preffing demands which may be against him, to fell his estate at once, or a part of it, than to put it to nurse (as I may term mortgaging); for it will be woefully fostered indeed, and he will repent, and curse his fate, when he will have only the name of an estate, without the profits; for though he be present, and every day fees his property going to destruction, through the neglect of the manager, or through that of the manager and attorney together, he cannot presume to interfere with the management; nor can he by other means redress this grievance until the mortgage, with interest, and all costs, are discharged. When a mortgagee wishes to get an estate into his own possession, he discharges • dischages the old manager, and appoints some indolent lazy fellow (one of his own friends no doubt) in his stead; he gives a large falary, and the estate is neglected; and when it is at a low ebb, the major part of the cane pieces converted into wilds of cattle pastures, a number of the slaves, through hunger and severity, forced to run wild through the mountains and woods, and the late profperous and delightful plantation quite ruined, agreeable to his wishes; he swells up an enormous fum of debts, gets out an execution, brings the plantation, slaves, &c. to sale, and purchases them himself, or compounds with the unfortunate proprietor for a few joes, and gets it by this, or some other base stratagem, into his poffeffion. He then clandestinely invites all the run-aways to return, and that they shall be forgiven by their new master; by which servile stratagem he gets an addition of so many flaves to his property. An attorney in Jamaica charges five per cent. commission on the net proceeds of the shipments from every plantation which he has the care of; and this, though very high, is but a small part of an attorney's emoluments. He is invested with full power to act as he pleases; nor do the managers correspond with the proprietors in Europe to check the attorney's proceedings; for the attornies appoint both managers and overseers, and difcharge them at pleasure. 1 An attorney commonly supplies himself and friends with horses, cattle, sheep, poultry, fugar, rum, coffee, corn, &c. &c. from the plantations, and accounts for them as his confcience directs. An attorney borrows the cattle, mules, and negroes occasionally to work on his own estate, and returns them at leisure. Some attornies write for larger quantities of stores than is neceffary, and convert the overplus to their own use; others keep ftores, and take every opportunity of supplying the estates in their care with every article at an hundred per cent. advance. As attornies have the shipments of all the produce, they are courted by the merchants and masters of vessels to freight their ships and give them quick difpatch; they get valuable presents. The following is the nature of a letter from a needy attorney to the proprietor in London. Dear Sir, Spanish-Town, 20th June 1781. I was favoured with yours of the 6th of April, and obferve the contents. The present serves to ' cover bill of lading for fixty hogsheads of Mufcovado fugar from your Clarendon-hall estate, per the Eliza, Captain Donally; also, bill of lading for fifteen hogsheads from my own estate, which you will dispose of, and credit me for the net proceeds. I thought to have shipped forty hogsheads, but the heavy rains have broke up the |