He preferred to let the debt stand, but if the agents insisted upon payment now he would find means to discharge the obligation.
Not all planters could speak so confidently of their ability to find means to discharge a debt, for the truth is that the profits of tobacco culture were by no means so large as has often been supposed.

A recent writer speaks of huge incomes of twenty thousand to eighty thousand pounds a year and asserts that "the ordinary planter could count on an income of from L3,000 to L6,000." The first figures are altogether fabulous, "paper profits" of the same sort that can be obtained by calculating profits upon the geometrical increase of geese as illustrated in a well known story.

Even the last mentioned sums were realized only under the most favorable conditions and by a few planters.
Much of the time the price of the staple was low and the costs of transportation and insurance, especially in time of war, were considerable.

Washington himself had a consignment of tobacco captured by the French.
The planters were by no means so prosperous as is often supposed and neither was their life so splendid as has often been pictured.

Writers seem to have entered into a sort of conspiracy to mislead us concerning it.