venteen or eighteen; that he might very probably,
with my assistance, make a remove from this wilderness, and come into his
own country again; and that then it would be a thousand to one but he
would repent his choice, and the dislike of that circumstance might be
disadvantageous to both. I was going to say more, but he interrupted me,
smiling, and told me, with a great deal of modesty, that I mistook in my
guesses--that he had nothing of that kind in his thoughts; and he was
very glad to hear that I had an intent of putting them in a way to see
their own country again; and nothing should have made him think of
staying there, but that the voyage I was going was so exceeding long and
hazardous, and would carry him quite out of the reach of all his friends;
that he had nothing to desire of me but that I would settle him in some
little property in the island where he was, give him a servant or two,
and some few necessaries, and he would live here like a planter, waiting
the good time when, if ever I returned to England, I would redeem him. He
hoped I would not be unmindful of him when I came to England: that he
would give me some letters to his friends in London, to let them know how
good I had been to him, and in what part of the world and what
circumstances I had left him in: and he promised me that whenever I
redeemed him, the plantation, and all the improvements he had made upon
it, let the value be what it would, should be wholly mine.

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 should never forget the
circumstances I had 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 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 was neither too
backward to speak when requisite, nor impertinently forward when it was
no