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 in the instructions to Howard. It does not appear that the General Assembly passed a law at any time in pursuance of these instructions. The author of Leah and Rachel about the middle of the century declared that the report that fifty acres were allotted to each servant when he became free was a delusion. There must have been strong ground for opposition on the part of the landowners to the establishment of such a regulation. If it had been customary to make such a grant, the large body of persons who, when their terms expired, entered into indentures again, or hired themselves out at stated wages, would have been drawn away at once to their own estates, and the ability of the planters who had been their masters to secure laborers in place of them would have been diminished to a serious extent.