months; and if my new master had not been kind to me I believe I should have died under it at last.  And indeed I soon found that he fully deserved the good character which Captain Doran had given me of him; for he possessed a most amiable disposition and temper, and was very charitable and humane.  If any of his slaves behaved amiss he did not beat or use them ill, but parted with them.  This made them afraid of disobliging him; and as he treated his slaves better than any other man on the island, so he was better and more faithfully served by them in return.  By his kind treatment I did at last endeavour to compose myself; and with fortitude, though moneyless, determined to face whatever fate had decreed for me.  Mr. King soon asked me what I could do; and at the same time said he did not mean to treat me as a common slave.  I told him I knew something of seamanship, and could shave and dress hair pretty well; and I could refine wines, which I had learned on shipboard, where I had often done it; and that I could write, and understood arithmetic tolerably well as far as the Rule of Three.  He then asked me if I knew any thing of gauging; and, on my answering that I did not, he said one of his clerks should teach me to gauge.

Mr. King dealt in all manner of merchandize, and kept from one to six clerks.  He loaded many vessels in a year; particularly to Philadelphia, where he was born, and was connected with a great mercantile house in that city.  He had besides many vessels and droggers, of different sizes, which used to go about the island; and others to collect rum, sugar, and other goods.  I understood pulling and managing those boats very well; and this hard work, which was the first that he set me to, in the sugar seasons used to be my constant employment.  I have rowed the boat, and slaved at the oars, from one hour to sixteen in the twenty-four; during which I had fifteen pence sterling per day to live on, though sometimes only ten pence.  However this was considerably more than was allowed to other slaves that used to work with me, and belonged to other gentlemen on the island:  those poor souls had never more than nine pence per day, and seldom more than six pence, from their masters or owners, though they earned them three or four pisterines[Q]:  for it is a common practice in the West Indies for men to purchase slaves though they have not plantations themselves, in order to let them out to planters and merchants at so much a piece by the day, and they give what allowance they chuse out of this produce of their daily work to their slaves for subsistence; this allowance is often very scanty.  My master often gave the owners of these slaves two and a half of these pieces per day, and found the poor fellows in victuals himself, because he thought their owners did not feed them well enough according to the work they did.  The slaves used to like this very well; and, as they knew my master to be a man of feeling, they were always glad to work