4665. What have you to say with regard to the tea?-It is from 4d. to 8d. dearer per pound.
4666. Have you tried it at both places also?-Yes.
4667. Do you think you get the same quality at both?-It is the same quality. I have had to pay sometimes 9d. and sometimes 10d. per quarter for tea at the Boddam shop; and when I went to Mr. Henderson's shop, I got the same tea for 8d.
4668. So far as you could judge, was the tea at both places of the same quality?-Yes, so far as I could judge, it was. Then for the cotton I would pay 2d., and sometimes more than that, per yard more in the Boddam shop than in Gavin Henderson's, or at other places.
4669. But if the prices are so much higher at the Boddam shop than elsewhere, why do you go there when you say you are not obliged in any way to take goods from the Boddam shop? Why do you not go to Gavin Henderson's for them?-I am obliged to go to the Boddam shop and take my goods there if I have no money in my pocket to buy them elsewhere.
4670. Does that often happen?-Perhaps not very often with me, but it happens as a general thing among many of the men. I believe there are as many men who have to go to Mr. Bruce's store, and take their goods there, in consequence of the want of money to pay for them at other places, as there are who can go and open accounts with other merchants and pay them yearly.
4671. Is there anything else you can say about that?-There is nothing more concerning that; but I have one thing more to say concerning our bondage, or our liberty, in fishing to Mr. Bruce. I have never had any help in paying rent or purchasing meal for my living, or such things as I required for clothing, except from what I could earn myself. I have sometimes had little clear money to get, and sometimes I have been from £2 to £6 behind in my accounts with Mr. Bruce, but he never charged me anything for that. I was fishing to him, and obedient to him, and he never interfered with me until my earnings paid up my debt account; but he would give me supplies although was in his debt, and if I got money from him, even when I was in his debt, I was at perfect liberty to go where I liked for the goods I wanted. If I ran up an account at any other shop, he gave me money and I settled it; and then at settlement time, if I had any money remaining to come to me, I got it in cash after he had deducted the value of any goods I might have got from his store.
4672. But when you were in his debt at the end of the year, in the way you have stated, were you obliged to go to his store for your provisions, and your supplies of cotton and clothing?-I would be obliged to do so, unless I could work at any other trade, or do any other thing during the winter by which I could earn money to purchase things at other stores. I may work outside, or do a little mason work, in order to get some money; and he will not bind me so much as if he were to see me earning nothing, but he would allow me to keep that money, and go to other stores with it, and purchase what I required. If I have a cow or a horse to sell, I can sell it, and he will never inquire or push me for the balance. I can get my money for it, and go to other stores for my meal and several things.
4673. If you sell a beast off your farm, while you are in debt to him, he does not object to you applying the price as you like?-He has made no objection; but when a man is in debt to him, he expects to get the first offer of it.
4674. He expects that a man who is in his debt will offer his cow or his pony to him first?-Yes, he looks for that; he has always expected it.