But it is not alone in Virginia that perplexed employers were found. John Winter, writing to Trelawny from Richmond Island, Maine, under date of July 10, 1639, says of a certain Priscilla:
“You write me of some yll reports is given of my Wyfe for beatinge the maid; yf a faire waye will not do yt, beatinge must, sometimes, vppon such Idlle girrells as she is. Yf you think yt fitte for my wyfe to do all the worke & the maide sitt still, she must forbeare her hands to strike, for then the worke will ly vndonn. She hath bin now 2 yeares ½ in the house, & I do not thinke she hath risen 20 times before my Wyfe hath bin vp to Call her, & many tymes light the fire before she Comes out of her bed. She hath twize gon a mechinge in the woodes, which we haue bin faine to send all our Company to seeke. We Cann hardly keep her within doores after we ar gonn to beed, except we Carry the kay of the doore to beed with us. She never Could melke Cow nor goat since she Came hither. Our men do not desire to haue her boyle the kittle for them she is so sluttish. She Cannot be trusted to serue a few piggs, but my wyfe most Commonly must be with her. She hath written home, I heare, that she was fame to ly vppon goates skins. She might take som goates skins to ly in her bedd, but not given to her for her lodginge. For a yeare & quarter or more she lay with my daughter vppon a good feather bed before my daughter being lacke 3 or 4 daies to Sacco, the maid goes into beed with her Cloth & stockins, & would not take the paines to plucke of her Cloths: her bedd after was a doust bedd & she had 2 Coverletts to ly on her, but sheets she had none after that tyme she was found to be so sluttish. Her beating that she hath had hath never hurt her body nor limes. She is so fatt & soggy she Cann hardly do any worke. This I write all the Company will Justify. Yf this maid at her lasy tymes, when she hath bin found in her ill accyons, do not deserue 2 or 3 blowes, I pray Judge You who hath most reason to Complaine, my wyfe or the maid.... She hath an vnthankefull office to do this she doth, for I thinke their was never that steward yt amonge such people as we haue Could giue them all Content. Yt does not pleas me well being she hath taken so much paines & Care to order things as well as she Could, & ryse in the morning rath, & go to bed soe latte, & to haue hard speches for yt.”[72]
Winter’s letters and reports to the London Company are as full of his trials with his servants indoors and out, as are the conferences to-day between perplexed employers. Even when fortune smiled on him and one promised well, misfortune overtook her.
“The maid Tomson had a hard fortune. Yt was her Chance to be drowned Cominge over the barr after our Cowes, & very little water on the barr, not aboue ½ foote, & we Cannot Judge how yt should be, accept that her hatt did blow from her head, & she to saue her hatt stept on the side of the barr.... I thinke yf she had lived she would haue proved a good servant in the house: she would do more worke then 3 such maides as Pryssyllea is.”[73]
It is true that Maine was a remote colony and the difficulty of obtaining good servants was presumably greater than in places more accessible. Yet the same tale of trial comes from Boston and from those whose means, character, and position in society would seem to exempt them from the difficulties more naturally to be expected in other places. Mrs. Mary Winthrop Dudley writes repeatedly in 1636 to her mother, Mrs. Margaret Winthrop, begging her to send her a maid, “on that should be a good lusty seruant that hath skille in a dairy.”[74] But how unsatisfactory the “lusty servant” proved a later letter of Mrs. Dudley shows:
“I thought it convenient,” she writes, “to acquaint you and my father what a great affliction I haue met withal by my maide servant, and how I am like through God his mercie to be freed from it; at her first coming me she carried her selfe dutifully as became a servant; but since through mine and my husbands forbearance towards her for small faults, she hath got such a head and is growen soe insolent that her carriage towards vs, especially myselfe is vnsufferable. If I bid her doe a thinge shee will bid me to doe it my selfe, and she sayes how shee can give content as wel as any servant but shee will not, and sayes if I loue not quietnes I was never so fitted in my life, for shee would make mee haue enough of it. If I should write to you of all the reviling speeches and filthie language shee hath vsed towards me I should but grieue you. My husband hath vsed all meanes for to reforme her, reasons and perswasions, but shee doth professe that her heart and her nature will not suffer her to confesse her faults. If I tell my husband of her behauiour towards me, vpon examination shee will denie all that she hath done or spoken: so that we know not how to proceede against her: but my husband now hath hired another maide and is resolved to put her away the next weeke.”[75]
Other members of the Winthrop family also have left an account of their trials of this kind. A generation later, July 7, 1682, Wait Winthrop wrote to Fitz-John Winthrop, “I feare black Tom will do but little seruis. He used to make a show of hanging himselfe before folkes, but I believe he is not very nimble about it when he is alone. Tis good to haue an eye to him, and if you think it not worth while to keep him, eyther sell him or send him to Virginia or the West Indies before winter. He can do something as a smith.”[76] In the third generation John Winthrop, the son of Wait Winthrop, wrote to his father from New London, Connecticut, 1717:
“It is not convenient now to write the trouble & plague we have had wᵗʰ this Irish creature the year past. Lying & unfaithfull; wᵈ doe things on purpose in contradiction & vexation to her mistress; lye out of the house anights, and have contrivances wᵗʰ fellows that have been stealing from oʳ estate & gett drink out of yᵉ cellar for them; saucy & impudent, as when we have taken her to task for her wickedness she has gon away to complain of cruell usage. I can truly say we have used this base creature wᵗʰ a great deal of kindness & lenity. She wᵈ frequently take her mistresses capps & stockins, hanckerchers &c., and dress herselfe, and away wᵗʰout leave among her companions. I may have said some time or other when she has been in fault, that she was fitt to live nowhere butt in Virginia, and if she wᵈ not mend her ways I should send her thither; thô I am sure no body wᵈ give her passage thither to have her service for 20 yeares, she is such a high spirited pernicious jade. Robin has been run away near ten days, as you will see by the inclosed, and this creature knew of his going and of his carrying out 4 dozen bottles of cyder, metheglin, & palme wine out of the cellar amongst the servants of the towne, and meat and I know not wᵗ.”[77]
The trials of at least one Connecticut housekeeper are hinted at in an Order of the General Court in 1645, providing that a certain “Susan C., for her rebellious carriage toward her mistress, is to be sent to the house of correction and be kept to hard labor and coarse diet, to be brought forth the next lecture day to be publicly corrected, and so to be corrected weekly, until order be given to the contrary.”[78]