Page:Augustine Herrman, beginner of the Virginia tobacco trade, merchant of New Amsterdam and first lord of Bohemia manor in Maryland (1941).djvu/115

 that settlement and Bohemia Manor. On the way to Herrman’s house they met Casperus, his second son, who fell into conversation with the religionists and who appears to have been charmed with their peculiar ideas of society. He promised Sluyter and Dankaerts that he would arrange an interview for them with his father. In the middle of the afternoon of December 3 they arrived at the manor house where they delivered Ephraim’s letter to the old lord.

“Becoming thus acquainted”, they wrote, “he showed us every kindness he could in his condition, as he was very miserable both in soul and body. His plantation was going much into decay, as well as his body for want of attention. There was not a Christian man, as they term it, to serve him; nobody but negroes. All this was increased by a miserable, doubly miserable wife; but so miserable that I will not relate it here. All his children have been compelled on her account to leave their father’s house. He spoke to us of his land, and said he would never sell it or hire it to Englishmen, but would sell it cheap, if we were inclined to buy. But we satisfied ourselves and him by looking at it then, hoping that we might see each other on our return. We were directed to a place to sleep, but the screeching of the wild geese and other wild fowl in the creek before the door prevented us from having a good sleep, though it answered.”

Herrman gave the two Labadists passports that authorized them to travel anywhere in Maryland. The following entry in