Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/21

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fur, and a pair of plain shoes. The under linen was of dowlas and lockram.^[1]

The author of Leah and Rachel, a pamphlet published about the middle of the century, denied very emphatically the correctness of the report prevailing at that time in England that the servants in Virginia were compelled to sleep on boards by the fireplace instead of in comfortable beds. The best indication of the treatment which they received in the way of physical comforts, as he averred, was the general satisfaction expressed by all persons of this class who had been recently imported, a satisfaction which had led them to use their influence with friends and acquaintances in the mother country to induce them to emigrate to the Colony.^[2] The author of Public Good without Private Interest went so far as to charge the planters with forcing the laborers in their employment to “lie by all the time of their servitude on ash heaps or otherwise to kennel up and down like dogs.” If this occurred, it was only in rare cases, for the General Assembly had always shown a remarkable solicitude to furnish every means as a protection for those who

↑ Records of York County, vol. 1694-1697, p. 118, Va. State Library. Among the items in a statement of Edward Moss of York County, showing his expenditures on account of his servant, Richard Stephens, were the following: for a pair of shoe strings, 3 lbs. of tobacco; for a peniston coat, 60 lbs. of tobacco; for a dowlas shirt, 50 lbs. of tobacco. Vol. 16571663, p. 411, Va. State Library. The following from the records of the General Court, Dec. 11, 1640, preserved in a minute in the Robinson Transcripts, p. 8, is also of interest: “Whereas William Huddleston, servant unto Mr. Canhow, hath complained to the board against his master for want of all manner of apparel, the court hath, therefore, ordered that the said Canhow shall before Christmas next provide and allow unto the said Huddleston such sufficient apparel of linen and woollen as shall be thought fit by Captain William West or otherwise that the said Captain West shall have power to dispose of the said servant until the said Canhow do perform this order.”
↑ Leah and Rachel, p. 12, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.

[1] Records of York County, vol. 1694-1697, p. 118, Va. State Library. Among the items in a statement of Edward Moss of York County, showing his expenditures on account of his servant, Richard Stephens, were the following: for a pair of shoe strings, 3 lbs. of tobacco; for a peniston coat, 60 lbs. of tobacco; for a dowlas shirt, 50 lbs. of tobacco. Vol. 16571663, p. 411, Va. State Library. The following from the records of the General Court, Dec. 11, 1640, preserved in a minute in the Robinson Transcripts, p. 8, is also of interest: “Whereas William Huddleston, servant unto Mr. Canhow, hath complained to the board against his master for want of all manner of apparel, the court hath, therefore, ordered that the said Canhow shall before Christmas next provide and allow unto the said Huddleston such sufficient apparel of linen and woollen as shall be thought fit by Captain William West or otherwise that the said Captain West shall have power to dispose of the said servant until the said Canhow do perform this order.”

[2] Leah and Rachel, p. 12, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III.

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