Sot-Weed Factor, p. 6.
A young woman in search of employment was told that by going on board ship she would find it in Virginia, a few miles below on the Thames. Another young woman was persuaded to enter the ship, and was then sold into service. Cited by Bruce, I., 614, from Interregnum Entry Book, vol. 106, p. 84, and British State Papers, Colonial, vol. XIII., No. 29, 1.
The evil of “spiriting away” both children and adults became so great that in 1664 the Committee for Foreign Plantations interposed, and the Council created the office of Register, charged with the duty of keeping a record of all persons going to America as servants, and the statement that they had voluntarily left England. This act was soon followed by another fixing the penalty of death, without benefit of clergy, in every case where persons were found guilty of kidnapping children or adults. But even these extreme measures did not put an end to the evil; and it is stated that ten thousand persons were annually kidnapped after the passage of the act. Bruce, I., 614-619.
[36] “The Forme of Binding a Servant” is given in A Relation of Maryland, pp. 62-63, and reads as follows:
This Indenture made the ____ day of ____ in the yeere of our Soveraigne Lord King Charles, &c. betweene ____ of the one party, and ____ on the other party, Witnesseth, that the said ____ doth hereby covenant promise, and grant to, and with the said ____ his Executors and Assignes, to serve him from the day of the date hereof, untill his first and next arrivall in Maryland; and after for and during the tearme of ____ yeeres, in such service and imployment as the said ____ or his assignes shall there imploy him, according to the custome of the countrey in the like kind. In consideration whereof, the said ____ doth promise and grant, to and with the said ____ to pay for his passing, and to find him with Meat, Drinke, Apparell and Lodging, with other necessaries during the said terme; and at the end of the said terme, to give him one whole yeeres provision of Corne, and fifty acres of Land, according to the order of the countrey. In witnesse whereof, the said ____ hath hereunto put his hand and scale, the day and yeere above written.
Sealed and delivered in the presence of ____
Neill, Virginia Carolorum, pp. 5-7, gives a similar copy. Bruce, II., 2, gives the indenture of one Mary Polly whose master was to “maintain ye sᵈ Mary noe other ways than he doth his own in all things as dyett, cloathing and lodging, the sᵈ Mary to obey the sᵈ John Porter in all his lawful commands within ye sᵈ term of years.”
[37] Hening, I., 257, 1642.
[38] Hening, I., 411, 1655.
[39] Ibid., I., 441-442, 1657.