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408 Correspondence of Governor Sharpe.
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Letter Bk. IV
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become Tenants & to Collect the Rents. The Method these
Stewards pursue is this, when a Person has an Inclination to
become a Tenant on a Mannour he desires a Survey might be
made on such a Part as he shall point out, which being done
by the Steward, Certificate thereof is returned by Him to the
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p. 84
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Agent together with a Lease & Counterpart, the Agent
having compared the Certificate & Lease offers them to the
Governor & they both Sign & execute the Lease & its Coun-
terpart, the Lease is then returned to the Steward to be
entered on his Rentall & did to the Lessee, but the Counter-
part the Agent keeps; This Mode of Proceeding I doubt not
but Your Ldp will think very regular & approve of, & for my
own Part I am of Opinion that if the Agent was to appoint
certain or particular Days for Signing Leases (suppose twice
a Year) & would insist upon the Stewards preparing & pre-
senting them on those Days this Business might be transacted
without any Difficulty, & tho such Persons as commonly
become Tenants in this Part of America are such as have not
much property & often little Industry yet I am persuaded that
if the Stewards were regularly called on & by a competent
Salary or reasonable Reward incited to Collect the Rents as
soon as they become due the Tenants would become much
more punctual than they are at present, tho as it sometimes
happens that a Man loses his whole Crop of Tobo without any
fault of his own, I am apt to think that it will not at least for
many Years be in an Agents power to Account with Your
Ldp regularly & punctually for the whole Amount of the
Annual Rents of the Mannours, as he might for the other
Parts of Your Ldp's Revenue: I mean that some of the
Tenants will at times be absolutely unable to pay their Rent
when it becomes due, which of Course must occasion a
Deficiency in the Agent's Remittance, however if his man-
nour Accounts were regularly kept & transmitted this would
occasion no Intricacy or Difficulty. As the Reserve Lands
are leased out in the same way as are Tenements on the Man-
nours they may be also put under the same Regulation. The
next part of Your Ldp's Revenue that I shall mention is the
Quit Rents & Alienation Fines, & on this Occasion I must say
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p. 85
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that now the Frontier Inhabitants are quiet & free from
Alarms it must be the Agents own Fault if he does not make
the Farmers account regularly & make due Payments, since if
they neglect to do so he may & ought to put their Bonds in
Suit, as I have more than once told him: but indeed several
of them have declared to me that they have not been able
sometimes to prevail on him to receive their Money or give
them Acquittances when he has received it. As to settling
the Naval Officers Accounts I cannot conceive there is much
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