"
Such was the plan of Mr. Steele, and I have the pleasure of being able
to announce, that the result of it was _highly satisfactory to himself_.
In the year 1788, when only the first and second part of it had been
reduced to practice, he spoke of it thus:--"A plantation," says he, "of
between seven and eight hundred acres has been governed by fixed laws
and a Negro-court _for about five years with great success_. In this
plantation no overseer or white servant is allowed to lift his hand
against a Negro, nor can he arbitrarily order a punishment. Fixed laws
and a court or jury of their peers _keep all in order_ without the ill
effect of sudden and intemperate passions." And in the year 1790, about
a year after the last part of his plan had been put to trial, he says in
a letter to Dr. Dickson, "My copyholders have succeeded beyond my
expectation." This was his last letter to that gentleman, for he died in
the beginning of the next year. Mr. Steele went over to Barbadoes, as I
have said before, in the year 1780, and he was then in the eightieth
year of his age. He began his humane and glorious work in 1783, and he
finished it in 1789. It took him, therefore, six years to bring his
Negroes to the state of vassalage described, or to that state from
whence he was sure that they might be transferred without danger in no
distant time, to the rank of freemen, if it should be thought desirable.
He lived one year afterwards to witness the success of his labours.
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