It is demonstratively clear, that on this Estate (Mount Vernon) I have more working Negros by a full moiety, than can be employed to any advantage in the farming system, and I shall never turn Planter thereon.

To sell the overplus I cannot, because I am principled against this kind of traffic in the human species. To hire them out, is almost as bad, because they could not be disposed of in families to any advantage, and to disperse the families I have an aversion. What then is to be done? Something must or I shall be ruined; for all the money (in addition to what I raise by Crops, and rents) that have been received for Lands, sold within the last four years, to the amount of-Fifty thousand dollars, has scarcely been able to keep me a float.

Under these circumstances, and thorough conviction that half the workers I keep on this Estate, would render me greater nett profit than I now derive from the whole, has made me resolve, if it can be accomplished, to settle Plantations on one of my other Lands. But where? with going to the Western Country I am unable, as yet to decide; as the best if not all the Lands I have on the East of the Alliganies, are under Leases, or some kind of incumbrance or another. But as you can give me correct information relative to this matter, I now early apply for it.*