The urbanity of the peasants is very singular. The meanest of our soldiers that enter’d one of their houses
was instantly regal’d with a large bowl of Bread & Milk or any other eatables their Houses afforded; and
altho our soldiery seldom made them any gratuitys their kindness was still unremitted. But altho their hearts
are good their Oeconomy is by no means so. After a peasants house is once built and the rain shut out, no
more water ever touches their floors save a little holy water every morning which follows a partial sweeping....
In general I found the men and women much more dilatory
and Idle than the people among us; to attain a bare subsistence seem’d to be the height of their wishes.
A land of slaves will ever be a land of poverty Ignorance & Idleness!
Among the common people all the learning is confin’d to the women, who are sent to school when young,
which the men seldom or never are- not one in 30 of the latter can read.