to encourage honest Europeans as much as you do, and to see them prosper:  you tell me he has but one son; I will lease them an hundred acres for any term of years you please, and make it more valuable to your Scotchman than if he was possessed of the fee simple.  By that means he may, with what little money he has, buy a plough, a team, and some stock; he will not be incumbered with debts and mortgages; what he raises will be his own; had he two or three sons as able as himself, then I should think it more eligible for him to purchase the fee simple.  I join with you in opinion, and will bring Andrew along with me in a few days.

Well, honest Andrew, said Mr. A. V., in consideration of your good name, I will let you have an hundred acres of good arable land, that shall be laid out along a new road; there is a bridge already erected on the creek that passes through the land, and a fine swamp of about twenty acres.  These are my terms, I cannot sell, but I will lease you the quantity that Mr. James, your friend, has asked; the first seven years you shall pay no rent, whatever you sow and reap, and plant and gather, shall be entirely your own; neither the king, government, nor church, will have any claim on your future property:  the remaining part of the time you must give me twelve dollars and an half a year; and that is all you will have to pay me.  Within the three first years you must plant fifty apple trees, and clear seven acres of swamp within the first part of the lease; it will be your own advantage:  whatever you do more within that time, I will pay you for it, at the common rate of the country.  The term of the lease shall be thirty years; how do you like it, Andrew?  Oh, Sir, it is very good, but I am afraid, that the king or his ministers, or the governor, or some of our great men, will come and take the land from me; your son may say to me, by and by, this is my father’s land, Andrew, you must quit it.  No, no, said Mr. A. V., there is no such danger; the king and his ministers are too just to take the labour of a poor settler; here we have no great men, but what are subordinate to our laws; but to calm all your fears, I will give you a lease, so that none can make you afraid.  If ever you are dissatisfied with the land, a jury of your own neighbourhood shall value all your improvements, and you shall be paid agreeably to their verdict.  You may sell the lease, or if you die, you may previously dispose of it, as if the land was your own.  Expressive, yet inarticulate joy, was mixed in his countenance, which seemed impressed with astonishment and confusion.  Do you understand me well, said Mr. A. V.?  No, Sir, replied Andrew, I know nothing of what you mean about lease, improvement, will, jury, etc.  That is honest, we will explain these things to you by and by.  It must be confessed that those were hard words, which he had never heard in his life; for by his own account, the ideas they convey would be totally useless in the island of Barra.  No