WHITE SLAVES IN THE PLANTATIONS. 615 



ing the misery of the exiles, for it was thought that in New Eng- 

 land 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 sub- 

 ject 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 Eng- 

 land. 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 re- 

 bellion, 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 esti- 

 mated 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 



