n."

"I never was good at arithmetic; go into the figures," he replied, still
laughing, while Madam P----, who had laid aside her book, listened very
attentively.

"Well, you have two hundred and seventy negroes, whom you value, we'll
say, with your mules, 'stills,' and movable property, at two hundred
thousand dollars; and twenty thousand acres of land, worth about three
dollars and a half an acre; all told, two hundred and seventy thousand
dollars. A hundred and fifty-four able-bodied hands produce you a yearly
profit of eleven thousand dollars, which, saying nothing about the cost
of keeping your live stock, the wear and tear of your mules and
machinery, and the yearly loss of your slaves by death, is only four per
cent. on your capital. Now, with only the price of your land, say
seventy thousand dollars, invested in safe stocks at the North, you
could realize eight per cent.--five thousand six hundred dollars--and
live at ease; and that, I judge, if you have many runaways, or many die
on your hands, is as much as you really _clear_ now. Besides, if you
should invest seventy thousand dollars in almost any legitimate business
at the North, and should add to it, _as you now do_, your _time_ and
_labor_, you would realize far more than you do at present from your
entire capital."

"I never looked at the matter in that light. But I have given you my
profits as they _now_ are; some years I make more; six years ago I made
twenty-five thousand dollars."

"Yes; and six years hence you may make nothing."

"That's true. But it would cost me more to live at the North."

"There you are mistaken. What do you pay for your corn, your pork, and
your hay, for instance?"

"Well, my corn I have to bring round by vessel from Washington (North
Carolina), and it costs me high when it gets here--about ten bits (a
dollar and twenty-five cents), I think."

"And in New York you could buy it now at sixty to seventy cents. What
does your hay cost?"

"Thirty-five dollars. I pay twenty for it in New York--the balance is
freight and hauling."

"Your pork costs you two or three dollars, I suppose, for freight and
hauling."

"Yes; about that."

"Then in those items you might save nearly a hundred per cent.; and they
are the principal articles you consume."

"Yes; there's no denying that. But another thing is just as certain: it
costs less to support one of my niggers than one of your laboring men."

"That may be true. But it only