Here I told him I would live with him now till all my money was spent,
but would not let him spend a shilling of his own. We had some kind
squabble about that, but I told him it was the last time I was like to
enjoy his company, and I desired he would let me be master in that
thing only, and he should govern in everything else; so he acquiesced.
Here one evening, taking a walk into the fields, I told him I would now
make the proposal to him I had told him of; accordingly I related to
him how I had lived in Virginia, that I had a mother I believed was
alive there still, though my husband was dead some years. I told him
that had not my effects miscarried, which, by the way, I magnified
pretty much, I might have been fortune good enough to him to have kept
us from being parted in this manner. Then I entered into the manner of
peoples going over to those countries to settle, how they had a
quantity of land given them by the Constitution of the place; and if
not, that it might be purchased at so easy a rate this it was not worth
naming.
I then gave him a full and distinct account of the nature of planting;
how with carrying over but two or three hundred pounds value in English
goods, with some servants and tools, a man of application would
presently lay a foundation for a family, and in a very few years be
certain to raise an estate.
I let him into the nature of the product of the earth; how the ground
was cured and prepared, and what the usual increase of it was; and
demonstrated to him, that in a very few years, with such a beginning,
we should be as certain of being rich as we were now certain of being
poor.
He was surprised at my discourse; for we made it the whole subject of
our conversation for near a week together, in which time I laid it down
in black and white, as we say, that it was morally impossible, with a
supposition of any reasonable good conduct, but that we must thrive
there and do very well.
Then I told him what measures I would take to raise such a sum of #300
or thereabouts; and I argued with him how good a method it would be to
put an end to our misfortunes and restore our circumstances in the
world, to what we had both expected; and I added, that after seven
years, if we lived, we might be in a posture to leave our plantations
in good hands, and come over again and receive the income of it, and
live here and enjoy it; and I gave him examples of some that had done
so, and lived now in very good circumstances in London.