brothers of Elias Nuthall were compelled to send some one to Virginia to be exchanged for him, an evidence of the pressing demand for laborers in that Colony at this period.[1] Ten years later, William Martin, who resided in England, informed Nicholas Spencer, one of the principal citizens of Virginia, that he had sent over in his vessel, the Endeavor, his servant Francis Jones, “a gentleman’s son.”[2] These instances illustrating the liberal signification of the word “servant” in its relation to the emigrants in the seventeenth century, might be swelled in number by other instances equally to the point.[3]
I propose to confine myself now to the servants who guided the plough or wielded the spade, the hoe, or the axe, deferring consideration of the artisan and mechanic, who were under indentures, to that portion of my work which bears upon the condition of the manual trades. In that age of small private fortunes, domestics were comparatively unimportant in number, and were probably, with hardly an exception, women. It was the servants who took part in the tasks of the field and workshop who were of supreme value, and they were acquired as rapidly as the means of the landowners permitted.
There were two powerful influences at work in the seventeenth century to increase the number of servants in the Colony who were engaged in the performance of agricultural tasks. One of these influences was to be observed exclusively in England, the other in Virginia, and though entirely distinct in themselves and separated
- ↑ Archives of Maryland, Proceedings of Council, 1667-1688, pp. 98, 103.
- ↑ British State Papers, Colonial Papers, August, 1687; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1687, p. 54, Va. State Library.
- ↑ In the Records of York County, vol. 1664-1672, p. 116, Va. State Library, there will be found an instance in which the attorney of Richard Longman, a merchant of London, is referred to as his “then servant.”
