ing the misery of the exiles, for it was thought that in New England they would have found a population kindly disposed toward them. The stipulation, however, that the place of banishment should be a West India island was not in every case complied with, for some of the exiles certainly found their way to Virginia; and a letter addressed to the government of Virginia on the subject of the convicts says: "Take all care that they continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted in any manner to redeem themselves by money or otherwise until that term be fully expired. Prepare a bill for the Assembly of our colony with such clauses as shall be requisite for this purpose." Less compliant than the Jamaica Legislature, which, as we have seen, had passed by command a similar act the year before, the Virginia Legislature appears never to have passed the measure sought to be forced on it, and at the accession of William and Mary all the exiles were set free.
Such was the condition of the slave market at this time that the convicts, notwithstanding the high rate of mortality during this, the earliest "middle passage," were very valuable in England. From a letter addressed to James II by Judge Jeffreys, protesting against the sycophants of the court sweeping up all the spoil, we learn that they were considered worth £15 apiece. He says: "I beseech your Majesty that I may inform you that each prisoner will be worth £10, if not £15, apiece; and, sir, if your Majesty orders these, as you have already designed, persons that have not suffered in the service will run away with the booty." The royal party in Somerset and the western counties pointed out that by the losses they had sustained during the rebellion, and by their exertions in its suppression, they had earned a right to share in this profitable speculation; but the king turned a deaf ear to their expostulations, and the court favorites remained victorious. The queen did not disdain to share in the profits of this inhuman business; and, instead of endeavoring to save even one single victim from this most frightful proscription, the only request that she is known to have preferred touching the rebels was that a hundred of those who had been sentenced to transportation might be given her. Macaulay declares that the profit which she cleared on the cargo, after making large allowance for those who died during the passage, can not be estimated at less than a thousand guineas. Of the horrors of the passage itself he says: "The misery of the exiles fully equaled that of the negroes who are now carried from Congo to Brazil. It appears from the best information which is at present accessible, that more than one fifth of those who were shipped were flung to the sharks before the end of the voyage. The human cargoes were stowed close in the holds of small vessels. So little space
