OF THE OTHER PUBLIC CHARITABLE WORKS, AND PARTICULARLY THEIR PROVISION FOR THE POOR.

§ 53. They live in so happy a climate, and have so fertile a soil, that nobody is poor enough to beg, or want food, though they have abundance of people that are lazy enough to deserve it. I remember the time when five pounds was left by a charitable testator to the poor of the parish he lived in, and it lay nine years before the executors could find one poor enough to accept of this legacy, but at last it was given to an old woman. So that this may in truth be termed the best poor man's country in the world. But as they have nobody that is poor to beggary, so they have few that are rich; their estates being regulated by the merchants in England, who it seems know best what is profit enough for them in the sale of their tobacco and other trade.

§ 54. When it happens, that by accident or sickness, any person is disabled from working, and so is forced to depend upon the alms of the parish, he is then very well provided for, not at the common rate of some countries, that give but just sufficient to preserve the poor from perishing; but the unhappy creature is received into some charitable planter's house, where he is at the public charge boarded plentifully.

Many when they are crippled, or by long sickness become poor, will sometimes ask to be free from levies and taxes; but very few others do ever ask for the parish alms, or, indeed, so much as stand in need of them.

§ 55. There are large tracts of land, houses, and other things granted to free schools, for the education of children in many parts of the country; and some of these are so large, that of themselves they are a handsome maintenance to a master; but the additional allowance which gentlemen give with their sons, render them a comfortable subsistence. These schools have been founded by the legacies of well inclined gentlemen, and the management of them hath commonly been left to the direction of the county court, or to the vestry of the respective parishes. In all other places where such endowments have not been already made, the people join, and build schools for their children, where they may learn upon very easy terms.