'§67. But this way of peopling the colony was only at first. For after the advantages of the climate and the fruitfulness of the soil were well known, and all the dangers incident to infant settlements were over, people of better condition retired thither with their families, either to increase the estates they had before, or to avoid being persecuted for their principles of religion or government.
'Thus in the time of the rebellion in England several good cavalier families went thither with their effects to escape the tyranny of the usurper, or acknowledgment of his title. And so again, upon the Restoration, many people of the opposite party took refuge there, to shelter themselves from the king's resentment. But Virginia had not many of these last, because that country was famous for holding out the longest for the royal family of any of the English dominions.[13] For which reason the Roundheads went, for the most part, to New England, as did most of those that in the reign of King Charles II were molested on account of their religion, though some of these fell likewise to the share of Virginia.
As for malefactors condemned to transportation, though the greedy planter will always buy them, yet it is to be feared they will be very injurious to the country, which has already suffered many murders and robberies, the effect of that new law of England.'
Beverley notes also about these servants that 'a white woman is rarely or never put to work in the ground, if she be good for anything else.'
Bishop Meade (vol. i, p. 89) speaks also of these female servants:
'While the company and the Governor were endeavoring to improve the condition of the colony, by selecting a hundred young females of good character, to be wives to the laborers on the farms of Virginia, King James had determined to make of the colony a Botany Bay for the wretched convicts in England, and ordered one hundred to be sent over. The company remonstrated, but in vain. A large portion, if not all of them, were actually sent. The influence of this must have been pernicious. Whether it was continued by his successors, and how long, and to what extent, I know not.'
And again (pp. 365-'6), he says:
'The greatest difficulty they (the vestrymen) appear to have had was with the hired servants, of whom, at an early period, great numbers came over to this country, binding themselves to the richer families. The number of illegitimate children born of them and thrown upon the parish, led to much action on the part of the vestries and the legislature. The lower order of persons in Virginia, in a great measure, sprang from these apprenticed servants and from poor exiled culprits.'
Stith says (ed. 1747, p. 103), under date of 1609:
'But a great part of this new company consisted of unruly sparks, packed off by their friends to escape worse destinies at home. And the rest were chiefly made up of poor gentlemen, broken tradesmen, rakes, and libertines, footmen, and such others as were much fitter to spoil or ruin a commonwealth, than to help to raise or maintain one.'