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off those now, who have done nothing in the crop.  I have nothing for them to do & they can't stay here to plunder.  A number who left my service during the war, & went to York, return to my yard at pleasure, taking off the few who are inclined to do anything, all the negroes for a year past have stopped laboring just when they chose working only a few hours a day, many days not at all.  I allowed them to cultivate for themselves 20 acres of land, with my team & farming implements.  They were permitted to raise a limited number of hogs for their own use, which were fed from my farm, they now disregard the restriction, They raise as many as they choose, & they now have many more than I have, & still they demand rations of me.
A young man, a gardener, demands wages, when I have not a vegetable, & the whole garden is overrun with weeds.  They all have stopped to fish and Oyster whenever they chose, selling the oysters, & pocketing the proceeds.---
I gave each woman a month in which they might make money enough to buy dresses [[strikethrough]] food [[/strikethrough]], they now demand another dress besides.  If I should be forced to pay wages for the men who have pretended to work in the field, I must charge for the support of the now producers, some of the families would have cash $50 each to board & clothe them before the war, when provisions were abundant. O'wing to losses occasioned by the war, I am utterly unable