a small quantity of tobacco, but the original owner was frequently benefited further by escaping the expense and inconvenience attending the seasoning to which all who had newly arrived were liable.[1] If he found it inadvisable, after a careful examination of the practical advantages which the Colony had to offer, to remain there, he had no difficulty in selling the terms of his servants and thus securing himself against any loss from the expense he had incurred in bringing them to Virginia. It was also in his power to obtain more favorable provisions for them with a second master than were embodied in the agreement between themselves.[2]
When a servant had bound himself before his departure from England to work for a certain planter in Virginia, he could not escape from the obligation thus assumed by concealing himself until the ship in which he intended to sail had started on its voyage, and subsequently going over to the Colony under covenant to a different person. Whoever was guilty of this form of faithless dealing was punished by being compelled to labor for a period representing the length of both terms, the second master, however, being subordinate to the first in his claim upon the time and energies of the servant. The first term for which the latter was bound by the indenture he had shirked had to be completed before he could carry out his engagements under the second indenture.[3]
- ↑ Verney Papers, Camden Society Publications; see also Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, pp. 109-111.
- ↑ Letters of William Fitzhugh, Jan. 30, 1686-1687.
- ↑ See Lawes of Assembly, 1619, Colonial Records of Virginia, State Senate Doct., Extra, 1874, p. 28. An instance of a person, who had escaped and returned to England, being required, on coming back to the Colony under new indentures, to serve out his first term, will be found in Records of General Court, p. 78.
