able fear that the Colony might be injured in reputation by the belief which would arise in England that Virginia was a place only fit for the residence of the basest and most despicable class of persons.[1]
How important this matter was considered to be by the Virginians appears from their grateful feeling towards Arlington for assisting in securing the English Government’s approval of the order passed by the General Court, prohibiting the further importation of convicts into the Colony, and Ludwell was careful to impress upon that nobleman the fact that the safety and prosperity of the people were dependent upon the continuation of this approval.[2] In 1682, the Commissioners of Trade and Plantations entered a memorandum that no felon should be sent to any of the English foreign settlements unless he furnished security in one hundred pounds sterling that he would not return in four years.[3] The amount of this security was so large that if the Privy Council had adopted the suggestion, it must have seriously diminished the number of criminal persons introduced into the Colonies. Not many merchants who supplied Virginia with servants would have been willing to incur the risk of such a heavy loss by offering the security in their own names. Few convicts were in a position to give so large a bond on the basis of their own property, and their rela-
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, pp. 510, 511. “Nor hath it been a small motive to us to hinder and prohibite the importation of such dangerous and scandalous people since we thereby apparently loose our reputation whilst we are believed to be a place only fitt to receive such base and lewd persons.”
- ↑ Letter of Secretary Ludwell to Arlington, British State Papers, Colonial Papers, July 17, 1671; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1671, p. 178, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Memorandum of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, British State Papers, Colonial Entry Book, No. 97, p. 83; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1682, p. 201, Va. State Library.
