In the seventeenth century, there was, as has been seen, a combination of influences to induce this kind of laborers to leave their native land in large numbers. Their poverty was no obstacle to their emigration, because the demand for their services in the Colonies was so great, that there were always persons anxious to bear the expense of their transportation in return for the right of disposing of them for a consideration after arrival.
Nor was there any attempt on the part of the higher ranks in England or the men occupying positions of authority there in that age to obstruct this tide of emigration. The political economists of the seventeenth century regarded the mass of the poor with impatience and aversion as a useless weight upon the welfare of the community.[1] I have already pointed out that one of the strongest motives which entered into the earliest English enterprises looking to colonization of that vast extent of country known as Virginia, was the hope that this new country would furnish homes for the overflowing population of England, and thus relieve the parishes of men and women who, however willing to work, were unable to find employment, and who were, therefore, compelled to rely in part at least upon the charity of others for subsistence. It was not planned that Virginia was to become a place for the retention of those who had been guilty of crime in England, and who in consequence were to be banished from their native land; on the contrary, it was anticipated that the Colony would diminish crime in the kingdom by drawing away a large number of the inhabitants who otherwise might be tempted, by the small opportunities within their reach of earning a livelihood, to drift into vagabondage, beggary, and lawlessness. In this way, it was anticipated that Virginia would be the means of lessening the growing charges im-
- ↑ Rogers’ History of Agriculture and Prices in England, vol. V, p. 103.
