"lay aside scruples against" a traffic in human beings before they exchanged their products for the "twenty Negars"?
The student who looks to see why this Virginia colony was established may see, first of all, in "The True and Sincere Declaration," published in 1609, what the colonists said was their chief object. It reads: "To preach and baptize into the Christian Religion, and, by the propagation of the Gospell, to recover out of the armes of the Devill, a number of poore and miserable soules wrapt up unto death in almost invincible ignorance; to endeavour the fulfilling and accomplishment of the number of the elect which shall be gathered out of all corners of the earth and to add our myte to the Treasury of Heaven."
They believed that was their chief object, but we have another view of their habits of thought.
In a letter written by Captain John Smith in 1614 we find the following regarding the sport of fishing in the waters of the colony:
"And is it not pretty sport to pull up twopence, sixpence, and twelvepence, as fast as you can haul and veer a line?"
One may search the entire literature of that day without finding another sentence so significant of the spirit of the age as well as of the colonists — the spirit that measured even its sport in fishing by counting the market value of each fish taken. In all sincerity they would proclaim that missionary work was the first object in making the settlement; they did truly wish to add their "myte" to the number of "the elect," but with their missionary purposes there was found a proclaimed and unrepressed determination
