His discourse was very prettily delivered, considering his youth, and was the more agreeable to me, because he told me positively the match was not for himself.  I gave him all possible assurances, that, if I lived to come safe to England, I would deliver his letters, and do his business effectually, and that he might depend I would never forget the circumstances I left him in.  But still I was impatient to know who was the person to be married; upon which he told me it was my Jack of all Trades and his maid Susan.

I was most agreeably surprised when he named the match; for indeed I had thought it very suitable.  The character of that man I have given already; and as for the maid, she was a very honest, modest, sober, and religious young woman; had a very good share of sense; was agreeable enough in her person; spoke very handsomely, and to the purpose; always with decency and good manners, and not backward to speak when any thing required it, or impertinently forward to speak when it was not her business; very handy and housewifely in any thing that was before her; an excellent manager, and fit indeed to have been governess to the whole island; she knew very well how to behave herself to all kind of folks she had about her, and to better if she had found any there.

The match being proposed in this manner, we married them the same day:  and as I was father at the altar, as I may say, and gave her away, so I gave her a portion, for I appointed her and her husband a handsome large space of ground for their plantation; and indeed this match, and the proposal the young gentleman made to me, to give him a small property in the island, put me upon parcelling it out among them, that they might not quarrel afterwards about their situation.

This sharing out the land to them I left to Will Atkins, who indeed was now grown a most sober, grave, managing fellow, perfectly reformed, exceeding pious and religious, and as far as I may be allowed to speak positively in such a case, I verily believe was a true sincere penitent.

He divided things so justly, and so much to every one’s satisfaction, that they only desired one general writing under my hand for the whole, which I caused to be drawn up, and signed and sealed to them, setting out the bounds and situation of every man’s plantation, and testifying that I gave them thereby, severally, a right to the whole possession and inheritance of the respective plantations or farms, with their improvements, to them and their heirs; reserving all the rest of the island as my own property, and a certain rent for every particular plantation after eleven years, if I or any one from me, or in my name, came to demand it, producing an attested copy of the same writing.

As to the government and laws among them, I told them, I was not capable of giving them better rules than they were able to give themselves; only made them promise me to live in love and good neighbourhood with one another:  and so I prepared to leave them.