Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/26

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vided that in every case in which a practitioner asked for his medical attention in behalf of persons of this class a remuneration plainly far more than the condition of his patient or the other circumstances of the case justified him in doing, the planter who was the object of the attempted imposition should be allowed the right to summon him to court to explain his conduct. If he failed to do so, it was assumed that he had been actuated simply by a motive of extortion, and was condemned to be punished severely.^[1]

The Assembly did not content itself merely with ensuring necessary physical comforts for the servants, or throwing safeguards about their health by inflicting penalties for negligence in masters or extortion in medical practitioners. It looked also to the improvement of their moral character. In case their servants had never been instructed in the catechism, employers were compelled by the express provisions of the statute law of the Colony to send them to the nearest church, there, in the hour preceding the opening of the exercises of the evening, to be grounded by the minister of the parish in the Ten Commandments, the Lord’s Prayer, and the general articles of belief.^[2]

The principal labor in which the servant was engaged was the cultivation of tobacco and the removal of the

↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 316.
↑ Ibid., pp. 181, 182. If a passage in Virginia’s Cure can be relied on as accurate, some of the masters were very lax in observing this provision of the law. “Some of the heathen complained that Sunday was the worst day of the seven to them because the servants of the Christian plantations nearest to them being then left at liberty, often spent that day in visiting the Indian towns, to the disquiet of the heathen and to the great scandal of the Christian religion.” Virginia’s Cure, p. 7, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III. It ought to be remembered in reading this passage that the author of Virginia’s Cure was seeking to place in the most unfavorable light, the religious condition of the people of the Colony.

[1] Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 316.

[2] Ibid., pp. 181, 182. If a passage in Virginia’s Cure can be relied on as accurate, some of the masters were very lax in observing this provision of the law. “Some of the heathen complained that Sunday was the worst day of the seven to them because the servants of the Christian plantations nearest to them being then left at liberty, often spent that day in visiting the Indian towns, to the disquiet of the heathen and to the great scandal of the Christian religion.” Virginia’s Cure, p. 7, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. III. It ought to be remembered in reading this passage that the author of Virginia’s Cure was seeking to place in the most unfavorable light, the religious condition of the people of the Colony.

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