125 “Among the rest, she often told me how the greatest part of the inhabitants of that colony came thither in very indifferent circumstances from England; that, generally speaking, they were of two sorts: either, 1st, such as were brought over by masters of ships to be sold as servants; or, 2nd, such as are transported after having been found guilty of crimes punishable with death. When they come here ... the planters buy them, and they work together in the field till their time is out.... [Then] they have a certain number of acres of land allotted them by the country, and they go to work to clear and cure the land, and then to plant it with tobacco and corn for their own use; and as the merchants will trust them with tools and necessaries upon the credit of their crop before it is grown, so they again plant every year a little more [etc.].... Hence, child, says she, many a Newgate-bird becomes a great man, and we have ... several justices of the peace, officers of the trained bands, and magistrates of the towns they live in, that have been burnt in the hand.... You need not think such a thing strange; ... some of the best men in the country are burnt in the hand, and they are not ashamed to own it; there’s Major ——, says she, he was an eminent pickpocket; there’s Justice B—— was a shoplifter, ... and I could name you several such as they are.” Moll Flanders, p. 66.
126 Plays written by the late Ingenious Mrs. Behn, London, 1724, iv. 110-112.
127 Postlethwayt’s Dictionary of Commerce, 3d ed., London, 1766, vol. ii. fol. 4 M, 2 recto, col. 1.
128 Boswell’s Life of Johnson, ed. Birkbeck Hill, ii. 312. Professor James Butler, in an excellent paper on “British Convicts shipped to American Colonies,” American Historical Review, ii. 12-33, suggests that Johnson’s impression may have been derived from his long connection with the Gentleman’s Magazine, wherein the lists of felons, reprieved from the gallows and sent to America were regularly published.
129 Whitmore, The Cavalier Dismounted, p. 17.
130 Pike, History of Crime in England, ii. 447.
131 American Historical Review, ii. 25.
132 Penny Cyclopædia, xxv. 138.
133 Report of Royal Historical MSS. Commission, xiii. 605.
134 The only specific mention which Professor Butler has been able to find of a criminal sent to New England is that of Elizabeth Canning, who was sent out for seven years under penalty of death if she returned to England during that time. She was brought to Connecticut in 1754, married John Treat two years afterward, and died in Wethersfield in 1773. American Historical Review, ii. 32.
135 Massachusetts Acts and Resolves, i. 452; ii. 245.
136 Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, i. 609; Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth, i. 464. It is commonly said that many of the prisoners condemned for taking part in Monmouth’s rebellion, 1685, were sent to Virginia (see Bancroft, Hist. of U. S. i. 471; Ballagh, J. H. U. Studies, xiii. 293). But an examination of the lists shows that nearly all were sent to Barbadoes, and probably none to Virginia. See Hotten, Original Lists of Persons of Quality, Emigrants, Religious Exiles, Political Rebels, etc., pp. 315-344.
137 Hening’s Statutes, ii. 50.
138 Mr. Bruce has well said that in the seventeenth century the white servant was “the main pillar of the industrial fabric” of Virginia, and “performed the most honourable work in establishing and sustaining” that colony. “There can be no doubt, as he goes on to say, that the work of colonization which has been performed by the people of England surpasses, both in extent and beneficence, that of any other race which has left an impression upon universal history, and the part the manual labourers have taken in this work is not less memorable than the part taken by the higher classes of the nation.” Economic History of Virginia, i. 573, 582.
139 Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, p. 279; Hotten’s Original Lists, pp. 207, 233, 254; Hening’s Statutes, i. 386.
140 In the absence of detailed specific knowledge it is unsafe to base inferences upon the word “servant,” inasmuch as in the seventeenth century it included not only menials but clerks and apprentices, even articled students in a lawyer’s or doctor’s office, etc. See William and Mary College Quarterly, i. 22; Bruce, Economic History, i. 573-575; ii. 45.
141 “Tour through the British Plantations,” London Magazine, 1755.
142 Hugh Jones, Present State of Virginia, 1724, p, 114.
143 Meade’s Old Churches, i. 366.
144 Before the Revolution this grievance had come to awaken fierce resentment. A letter printed in 1751 exclaims: “In what can Britain show a more sovereign contempt for us than by emptying their gaols into our settlements, unless they would likewise empty their offal upon our tables?... And what must we think of those merchants who for the sake of a little paltry gain will be concerned in importing and disposing of these abominable cargoes!”—Virginia Gazette, May 24, 1751.
145 Lecky, History of England, i. 127.
146 Smyth’s Tour in the United States, London, 1784, i. 72. In 1748 Maryland had 98,357 free whites, 6,870 redemptioners, 1,981 convicts, and 42,764 negroes. See Williams, History of the Negro Race in America, i. 247.
147 See above, vol. i. p. 16.
148 At the famous meeting in the Tabernacle at New York, in May, 1850, when Isaiah Rynders and his ruffians made a futile attempt to silence Garrison, one of the speakers maintained “that the blacks were not men, but belonged to the monkey tribe.” William Lloyd Garrison: the Story of his Life, told by his Children, iii. 294. Defenders of slavery at that time got much comfort from Agassiz’s opinion that the different races of men had distinct origins. It was perhaps even more effective than the favourite “cursed be Canaan” argument.
149 Bruce, Economic History, ii. 94. About 1854 (I am not quite sure as to the date) it was reported in Middletown, Conn., that the “horrid infidel,” Rev. Theodore Parker, had, on a recent Sunday in the Boston Music Hall, brought forward sundry cats and dogs and baptized them in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!!! I shall never forget the chill of horror which ran through the neighbourhood at this tale of wanton blasphemy. In 1867 I found the belief in the story still surviving among certain persons in Middletown with a tenacity that no argument or explanation could shake. The origin of the ridiculous tale was as follows: The famous abolitionist, Parker Pillsbury, made a speech in which he quoted what the lady said to Godwyn, that “he might as well baptize puppies as negroes.” In passing from mouth to mouth the report of this incident underwent an astounding transformation. First the speaker’s name was exchanged for that of another famous abolitionist, the strong and lovely Christian saint, Theodore Parker; and then the figure of speech was developed into an act and clothed with circumstance. Thus from the true statement, that Parker Pillsbury told a story in which an allusion was made to baptizing puppies, grew the false statement that Theodore Parker actually baptized cats and dogs. A great deal of what passes current as history has no better foundation than this outrageous calumny.
150 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 96-98.
151 Hening’s Statutes, ii. 260.
152 Hening, iii. 333-335.
153 For many of these details concerning slavery I am indebted to Bruce’s Economic History of Virginia, chap, xi.,—a book which it would be difficult to praise too highly.
154 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 107.
155 Beverley, History and Present State of Virginia, London, 1705, part iv. pp. 36-39. The historian was son of Major Robert Beverley mentioned above, on pages 109-114 of the present volume.
156 Burk’s History of Virginia, Petersburg, 1805, ii. 300.
157 Hening’s Statutes, iii. 537. For the loss of this slave by emancipation his master was indemnified by a payment of £40 from the colonial treasury.
158 Hening, iii. 461; vi. 111. In England in the Middle Ages such mutilation was a common punishment for rape; sometimes, in addition, the culprit’s eyes were put out. See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I. ii. 489.
159 Hening, iii. 210.
160 Hening, vi. 105.
161 Hening, vi. 107.
162 Hening, v. 558.
163 Hening, vi. 112.
164 Hening, iii. 87, 88.
165 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 129.
166 Hening, iv. 133, 134.
167 Hening, iii. 448, act of 1705.
168 See Larned’s excellent History for Ready Reference, iv. 2921, where the case is ably summed up.
169 Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia, 1782, Query xviii.
170 Hening, iii. 87, 454.
171 Hening, iii. 87.
172 Hening, ii. 170, act of 1662.
173 See Bruce, Economic History, ii. 109, where we are told that Jamestown was sorely scandalized by the loose behaviour of “thoughtful Mr. Lawrence.”
174 “The gain from the African labour outweighed all fears of evil from the intermixture.” Foote’s Sketches of Virginia, i. 23.
175 Baird, History of the Huguenot Emigration to America, ii. 178.
176 Brock, Documents relating to the Huguenot Emigration to Virginia, Va. Hist. Soc. Coll. N. S. v.; cf. Hayden’s Virginia Genealogies, Wilkes-Barré, 1891.
177 Chesapeake Bay, says Rev. Francis Makemie, is “a bay in most respects scarce to be outdone by the universe, having so many large and spacious rivers, branching and running on both sides; ... and each of these rivers richly supplied, and divided into sundry smaller rivers, spreading themselves ... to innumerable creeks and coves, admirably carved out and contrived by the omnipotent hand of our wise Creator, for the advantage and conveniency of its inhabitants; ... so that I have oft, with no small admiration, compared the many rivers, creeks, and rivulets of water ... to veins in human bodies.” A Plain and Friendly Perswasive, London, 1705, p. 5. “One receives the impression in reading of colonial Virginia that all the world lived in country-houses, on the banks of rivers. And the Virginia world did live very much in this way.” Miss Rowland’s Life of George Mason, i. 90.
178 The Huguenots seem to have preferred a French wine, for one of the first things they did (in 1704) was to “begin an essay of wine, which they made of the wild grapes gathered in the woods; the effect of which was noble, strong-bodied claret, of a curious flavour.” Beverley, History of Virginia, London, 1705, part iv. p. 46. This has the earmark of truth. American clarets are to this day strong-bodied, with a curious flavour!
179 Bruce, Economic History of Virginia, ii. 340-342.
180 Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, ii. 501.
181 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 471, where we are also told that “in many cases the wealthy planters imported from England the clothes worn by these servants and slaves.”
182 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 395, 399, 403, 405.
183 Beverley, History and Present State of Virginia, book iv. pp. 58, 83.
184 Hening, ii. 172-176.
185 Hening, ii. 471-478; iii. 53-69.
186 There was much strong feeling and vehement writing on the subject by those who were disgusted at the prevalent state of things: “I always judged such as are averse to towns to be three sorts of persons: 1. Fools, who cannot, neither will see their own interest and advantage in having towns. 2. Knaves, who would still carry on fraudulent designs and cheating tricks in a corner or secret trade, afraid of being exposed at a public market. 3. Sluggards, who rather than be at labour and at any charge in transporting their goods to market, though idle at home, and lose double thereby rather than do it. To which I may add a fourth, which are Sots, who may be best cured of their disease by a pair of stocks in town.” Makemie’s Plain and Friendly Perswasive, London, 1705, p. 16.
187 Present State of Virginia, 1697, p. 12.
188 A kind of cleaver.
189 Bruce, Economic History, ii. 382-383.
190 Conway, Barons of the Potomack and the Rappahannock, p. 116.
191 Though the attempts to stimulate shipbuilding met with little success, the manufacture of barges, pinnaces, and shallops was sustained by imperative necessity. See Bruce, op. cit. ii. 426-439.
192 Elkanah Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution, 2d ed., New York, 1856, chap. ii.
193 See Ripley’s Financial History of Virginia, pp. 119-124.
194 Bruce, op. cit. ii. 411-416.
195 Ripley, Financial History of Virginia, p. 122; cf. Bruce, op. cit. ii. 368.
196 McMaster, History of the People of the United States, i. 273.
197 Hening, ii. 192. An old satirical writer mentions the same custom at a Maryland inn, where, however, he did not seem in all respects to relish his supper:—
The night had for our traveller its characteristic American nuisance:—
but the morning-meal seems to have made amends:—
Ebenezer Cook, The Sot-Weed Factor; or, a Voyage to Maryland, London, 1708, pp. 5, 9.
198 For the description of the planter’s house and its surroundings I am much indebted to the admirable work of Mr. Bruce, chap. xii.
199 Beverley, History and Present State of Virginia, book iv. p. 56.
200 One often hears it said, of some old house or church in Virginia, that it was built of bricks imported from England; but, according to Mr. Bruce, all bricks used in Virginia during the seventeenth century seem to have been made there. Bricks were 8 shillings per 1,000 in Virginia when they were 18s. 8¼d. in London, to which the ocean freight would have had to be added. It is not strange, therefore, that Virginia exported bricks to Bermuda. As early as the Indian massacre of 1622 some of the Indians were driven away with brickbats. See Bruce, Economic History, ii. 134, 137, 142.
201 See above, vol. i. p. 212.
202 The Marquis de Chastellux, who visited Monticello in 1782, says: “We may safely aver that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the fine arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.” See Randall’s Life of Jefferson, i. 373.
203 Lee of Virginia, p. 116.
204 Larousse, Dictionnaire universel, viii. 668.
205 A double entendre, either “fork-bearer” or “gallows-bird.”
206
Meercraft.—Have I deserved this from you two, for all
My pains at court to get you each a patent?
Gilthead.—For what?
Meercraft.—Upon my project o’ the forks.
Sledge.—Forks? what be they?
Meercraft.—The laudable use of forks,
Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy,
To the sparing o’ napkins
207 Lee of Virginia, p. 116.
208 Lee of Virginia, loc. cit.
210 A minute account of the beverages and their use is given in Bruce, op. cit. ii. 211-231.
211 Smyth’s Tour in the United States, London, 1784, i. 41.
212 Samuel Peters, a Tory refugee, published in London, in 1781, an absurd “History of Connecticut,” in which he started the story of the “Blue Laws” of the New Haven Colony, which most people allude to incorrectly as “Blue Laws of Connecticut.” These “Blue Laws” were purely an invention of the mendacious Peters. There never were any such laws. See my Beginnings of New England, p. 136.
213 Miss Rowland’s Life of George Mason, i. 101, 102. This Mason, author of the Virginia Bill of Rights, and member of the Federal Convention of 1787, was great-grandson of the George Mason who figured in Bacon’s rebellion. His son John, whose narrative I here quote, was father of James Murray Mason, author of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, and one of the Confederacy’s commissioners taken from the British steamer Trent by Captain Wilkes in 1861.
214 Meade’s Old Churches, i. 98.
215 A rich Oriental silk, usually watered, first made in the Attabiya quarter of Bagdad, whence its name.
216 Mr. Bruce gives many inventories taken from county records, of which the following may serve as a specimen: “The wardrobe of Mrs. Sarah Willoughby, of Lower Norfolk, consisted of a red, a blue, and a black silk petticoat, a petticoat of India silk and of worsted prunella, a striped linen and a calico petticoat, a black silk gown, a scarlet waistcoat with silver lace, a white knit waistcoat, a striped stuff jacket, a worsted prunella mantle, a sky-coloured satin bodice, a pair of red paragon bodices, three fine and three coarse holland aprons, seven handkerchiefs, and two hoods.” Economic History, ii. 194.
217 The following specimen of a bill of funeral expenses is given in Bruce, op. cit. ii. 237:—
| lbs. tobacco. | |
|---|---|
| Funeral sermon | 200 |
| For a briefe | 400 |
| “ 2 turkeys | 80 |
| “ coffin | 150 |
| 2 geese | 80 |
| 1 hog | 100 |
| 2 bushels of flour | 90 |
| Dunghill fowle | 100 |
| 20 lbs. butter | 100 |
| Sugar and spice | 50 |
| Dressing the dinner | 100 |
| 6 gallon sider | 60 |
| 6“rum | 240 |
218 Virginia Magazine, ii. 294; cf. William and Mary College Quarterly, iii. 136.
219 Jones’s Present State of Virginia, London, 1724, p. 48.
220 Mr. W. G. Stanard, in an admirable paper on this subject, gives some names of famous horses then imported, “many of them being ancestors of horses on the turf at the present day;” such as “Aristotle, Bolton, Childers, Dabster, Dottrell, Fearnaught, Jolly Roger, Juniper, Justice, Merry Tom, Sober John, Vampire, Whittington, James, Sterling, Valiant, etc.” Virginia Magazine, ii. 301.
221 Smyth’s Tour in the United States, i. 20.
222 Ford, The True George Washington, pp. 194-198.
223 Hening, v. 102, 229-231; vi. 76-81. Washington was very fond of playing at cards for small stakes, also at billiards; and he sometimes bet moderately at horse-races. See Ford, loc. cit.
224 About four dollars.
225 Virginia Gazette, October, 1737, cited in Rives’s Life of Madison, i. 87, and Lodge’s History of the English Colonies, pp. 84, 85.
226 The recorder was a member of the flute family, and its name may be elucidated by Shakespeare’s charming lines (Pericles, act iv., prologue):—
Mr. Bruce (op. cit. ii. 175) mentions cornets as in use in Old Virginia, but this of course means an obsolete instrument of the hautboy family, not the modern brass cornet, which has so unhappily superseded the noble trumpet.
227 The inventory is printed in William and Mary College Quarterly, iii. 251.
228 The full list is given in William and Mary College Quarterly, iii. 170-174.
229 See Lyman Draper, in Virginia Historical Register, iv. 87-90.
230 William and Mary College Quarterly, iii. 247-249.
231 Hening, ii. 517.
232 Hening, ii. 518.
233 Virginia Magazine, i. 326, 348; William and Mary College Quarterly, v. 113. Allusion has already been made, on page 5 of the present volume, to the school founded by Benjamin Symms, or Symes.
234 Hening, i. 336.
235 President Tyler cites from the vestry-book of Petsworth Parish, in Gloucester County, an indenture of October 30, 1716, wherein Ralph Bevis agrees to “give George Petsworth, a molattoe boy of the age of 2 years, 3 years’ schooling, and carefully to Instruct him afterwards that he may read well in any part of the Bible, also to Instruct and Learn him ye sd molattoe boy such Lawfull way or ways that he may be able, after his Indented time expired, to gitt his own Liveing, and to allow him sufficient meat, Drink, washing, and apparill, until the expiration of ye sd time, &c., and after ye finishing of ye sd time to pay ye sd George Petsworth all such allowances as ye Law Directs in such cases, as also to keep the aforesd Parish Dureing ye aforesd Indented time from all manner of Charges,” etc. William and Mary College Quarterly, v. 219.
236 Miss Rowland’s Life of George Mason, i. 97.
237 Butler’s “British Convicts Shipped to American Colonies,” American Historical Review, ii. 27.
238 The worthy pastor even goes so far as to exclaim, with a groan, that two thirds of the schoolmasters in Maryland were convicts working out a term of penal servitude! Boucher’s Thirteen Sermons, p. 182. But in such declamatory statements it is never safe to depend upon numbers and figures. In the present case we may conclude that the number of such schoolmasters was noticeable; we are not justified in going further.
239 From the excellent papers by W. G. Stanard, on “Virginians at Oxford,” William and Mary College Quarterly, ii. 22, 149, I have culled a few items which may be of interest:—
John Lee, armiger (son of 1st Richard, see above, p, 19), educated at Queens, B. A. 1662, burgess.
Rowland Jones, cler., Merton, matric. 1663, pastor Bruton Parish.
Ralph Wormeley, armiger, of Rosegill (see above, p. 243), Oriel, matric. 1665, secretary of state, etc.
Emanuel Jones, cler., Oriel, B. A. 1692, pastor Petsworth Parish.
Bartholomew Yates, cler., Brasenose, B. A. 1698, Prof. Divinity W. & M.
Mann Page, armiger, St. John’s, matric. 1709, member of council.
William Dawson, plebs., Queens, matric. 1720, M. A. 1728, D. D. 1747, Prof. Moral Phil. W. & M. 1729, Pres. W. & M. 1743-52.
Henry Fitzhugh, gent., Christ Church, matric. 1722, burgess.
Christopher Robinson, gent., Oriel, matric. 1724, studied at Middle Temple.
Christopher Robinson, gent., Oriel, matric. 1721, M. A. 1729, Fellow of Oriel.
Musgrave Dawson, plebs., Queens, B. A. 1747, pastor Raleigh Parish.
Lewis Burwell, armiger, Balliol, matric. 1765.
240 Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, i. 282, 412, 419; ii. 861. For neglecting to “set up school” for the year, a town would be presented by the grand jury of the county, and would then try to make excuses. “In February, 1744, the usual routine was repeated. The farmers were summoned ‘to know what the Town’s Mind is for doing about a School for the insuing year.’ The school of the previous year having cost £55 old tenor, which may have been equivalent to 55 Spanish dollars, and it being necessary to raise this sum by a general taxation, the Town’s Mind was for doing nothing; and not until the following July did it consent to have a school opened.” Bliss, Colonial Times on Buzzard’s Bay, p. 118.