most willing, quiet, passive,
and subjected creatures, rather like slaves than wives; but my meaning
is, they were not alike, capable, ingenious, or industrious, or alike
cleanly and neat.

Another observation I must make, to the honour of a diligent application
on the one hand, and to the disgrace of a slothful, negligent, idle
temper on the other, that when I came to the place, and viewed the
several improvements, planting, and management of the several little
colonies, the two men had so far out-gone the three, that there was no
comparison; they had indeed both of them as much ground laid out for
corn as they wanted; and the reason was, because according to my rule,
nature dictated, that it was to no purpose to sow more corn than they
wanted; but the difference of the cultivation, of the planting, of the
fences, and indeed every thing else, was easy to be seen at first view.

The two men had innumerable young trees planted about their huts, that
when you came to the place nothing was to be seen but a wood; and
though they had their plantation twice demolished, once by their own
countrymen, and once by the enemy, as shall be shewn in its place; yet
they had restored all again, and every thing was flourishing and
thriving about them: they had grapes planted in order, and managed like
a vineyard, though they had themselves never seen any thing of that
kind; and by their good ordering their vines their grapes were as good
again as any of the others. They had also formed themselves a retreat in
the thickest part of the woods, where, though there was not a natural
cave, as I had found, yet they made one with incessant labour of their
hands, and where, when the mischief which followed happened, they
secured their wives and children so as they could never be found; they
having, by sticking innumerable stakes and poles of the wood, which, as
I said, grow so easily, made a grove impassable except in one place,
where they climbed up to get over the outside part, and then went in by
ways of their own leaving.

As to the three reprobates, as I justly call them, though they were much
civilized by their new settlement compared to what they were before, and
were not so quarrelsome, having not the same opportunity, yet one of the
certain companions of a profligate mind never left them, and that was
their idleness. It is true, they planted corn and made fences; but
Solomon's words were never better verified than in them: "I went by