The number of slaves belonging to any particular family is not easy to determine. The problem with counting them from the Parish Register is that they never appear all at once, and about all that can be known is that from one date to another a certain slave owner had at least x number of different slaves at one time or another. By this rather uncertain way of numbering them, Juan Menendez Marquez owned seven slaves; his son Francisco, eleven (of whom three were infants buried nameless); Juan II had ten; and his brother Thomas, four besides those out at La Chua. When Francisco II died in penury AN501 he was still the owner of seven. Only three were of an age to be useful, the rest being either small children or pensioners rather like himself. [Note 43: Parish Register Marriages and Baptisms; Francisco Menendez Marquez II probate papers 7/3/1743.] A conservative estimate of the number of adult slaves at one time in a gentleman’s house might be about four. (Bushnell KC)