753 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



[No. 12 



<-an hundred more maids, to make wives; and sixty 

 were accordingly sent, young, handsome, and well re- 

 commended to the company, for their virtuous educa- 

 tion and demeanor. 



"With them was sent over, the several recommen- 

 dations and testimonials of their behavior, that the pur- 

 chasers might thence be enabled to judge how to choose 

 The price of these wives was stated at an hundred 

 pounds of tobacco, and afterwards advanced to one 

 hundred and fifty, and proportionally more, it any of 

 them should happen to die; so that the adventurers 

 mi°-ht be refunded their original charge: And it was 

 also ordered, that this debt of wives, should have the 

 precedency of all others, and be first recoverable. 



"And it was strictly enjoined, that they should be 

 used well, and not married to servants, but to such iree 

 men and tenants, as could handsomely support them; 

 that, by their good fortune, multitude, of others might 

 be allured to come over, on the prospect of advanta- 

 ta«-eous matches. And the company likewise de- 

 clared their intention, that, for the encouragement o 

 settled families, and securing a posterity, they would 

 prefer and make consignments for married men, before 

 single persons: and that as many boys should be sent 

 as there were maids, to be apprentices to those who 

 married them. They also granted adventurers, who 

 subscribed to this roll, a ratable proportion ofland, ac- 

 cording to the number of maids sent, to be laid o!t to- 

 gether, and formed into a town, by the name of Maids- 

 town."— Stith, p. 197. 



In the same year, the instructions to the authorities, 

 brought out by Go\ ernor Yeardly — 

 "pressed upon them the raising several useful commod- 

 ities, as well as corn, wine, silk, and others heretofore 

 frequently mentioned; as also making oil of walnuts, 

 employing their apothecaries ia distillation, and search- 

 ing the country for minerals, dyes, gums, drugs, and 

 the like: and they ordered them, particularly by the 

 king's advice and desire, to draw the people oft from 

 their excessive planting of tobacco. To that end, 

 they were commanded to permit them, to make only 

 an hundred pounds of tobacco ahead; and to take ail 

 possible care to improve that proportion in goodness, 

 as much as might be, which would bring their com- 

 modity into request, and cause a more certain benefit 

 to the planter." — Hid. of Va:, vol. l,p 226. 



The letters of the governor and council in lS21, a to 

 the company, state, "that tobacco was stinted to IOC 

 plants per head, nine leaves to a plant," for each 

 individual cultivator. 



Among the laws made by the assembly in 1624, 

 were the following: 



"That whosoever should absent himself from divine 

 service any Sunday, without an allowable excuse, 

 should forfeit a pound of tobacco, and that he who ab- 

 sented himself a month, should forfeit fifty pounds of 

 tobacco: That there should be an uniformity in the 

 church, as near as might be, both in substance and 

 circumstance, to the canons of the church of England; 

 and that all persons should yield a ready obedience to 

 them, upon pain of censure: That the twenty-second 

 of March (the day of the massacre) should be solemni- 

 zed and kept holy; and that all other holidays should 

 be observed, except when two fell together in the 

 summer season, (the time of their working and crop,) 

 when the first only was to be observed, by reason of 

 their necessities and employment: That no minister 

 should be absent from his cure above two months in 

 the whole year, upon penalty of forfeiting half his 

 salary; and whosoever was absent above four months, 

 should forfeit his whole salary and his cure: That who- 

 soever should disparage a minister, without sufficient 

 proof to justify his reports, whereby the minds of his 

 parishioners might be alienated from him, and his min- 



istry prove less effectual, should not only pay five 

 hundred pounds of tobacco, but should also ask the 

 minister forgiveness publicly in the congregation: That 

 no man should dispose of any of his tobacco before 

 the minister was satisfied, upon forfeiture of double 

 his part towards the salary; and that one man of every 

 plantation should be appointed to collect the minister's 

 salary, out of the first and best tobacco and corn." — 

 Hist, of Va. vol. 1, p. 280. 



"That, for the people's encouragement to plant 

 a store of corn, the price should be left free, and eve- 

 ry man might sell it as dear as he could: (for the go- 

 vernor and council did then, and long afterwards, set 

 a rate yearly upon all commodities, with penalties up- 

 on those who exceeded it.) That there should be a 

 public granary in each parish, to which every planter 

 above IS years of age, who had been in the country 

 a year, and was alive at the crop, should contribute a 

 barrel of corn, to be disposed of for the public uses of 

 the parish, by the major part of the freemen; the re- 

 mainder to be taken out by the owners yearly, on St. 

 Thomas's day, and the new brought and put in its 

 room: That three capable men of every parish, should 

 be sworn to see th it every man planted and tended 

 corn sufficient for his family; and that those who neg- 

 lected so to do, should be presented by the said three 

 men, to the censure of the governor and council: 

 That all trade with the Indians for corn, as well pub- 

 lic as private, should be prohibited alter the June fol- 

 lowing: That every freeman should fence in a quar- 

 ter of an acre of ground, before the Whitsuntide next 

 ensuing, for planting vines, herbs, roots, and the like, 

 under the penalty of ten pounds of tobacco a man; but 

 that no man, for his own family, should be obliged to 

 fence more than an acre; and that whosoever had 

 fenced a garden, and was ousted of the land, should be 

 paid for it by the owner of the soil; and that they 

 should also plant mulberry trees." — vol. \,p. 283. 



It seems that the ladies of former days were at least 

 as much given to coquetry as their fair descendants 

 — but that they did not escape as easily as now from all 

 ill consequences of their oifence. The peculiar cir- 

 cumstances then existing — the number and variety of 

 suitors, and the strong proofs of their love, offered by 

 the readiness of each to exchange his whole market 

 croj) for a portionless bride — served to increase this 

 natural propensity of the fair sex, and ought to have 

 made the oifence more pardonable. But the assembly 

 took the matter in a more serious light, as by their en- 

 actment of 1C20— 



"the governor was obliged, soon after, to issue a proc- 

 lamation, forbidding women to contract themselves to 

 two several men atone time. For women being yet 

 scarce, and much in request, this offence was become 

 very common; whereby great disquiet arose between 

 parties, and no small trouble to the government. It 

 was therefore ordered, that every minister should 

 give notice in his church, that what man or woman soe- 

 ver should use any word or speech, tending to a con- 

 tract of marriage, to two several persons at one lime, 

 although not precise and legal, yet so as might entan- 

 gle or breed scruple in their consciences, should, for 

 such their oifence, either undergo corporal correction, 

 or be punished by fine, or otherwise, according to the 

 quality of the person so offending." — Hist, of Va., 

 vol. 1, p. 85. 



We have certainly improved greatly in this respect 

 in Virginia. This amiable weakness of the best of 

 nature's works, is no longer threatened by law with 

 "corporal correction" — nor have we given the least 

 countenance to the even baser modern fashion of the 

 more northern states, of jilted lovers seeking alleviation 

 of their woes, by bringing suits for pecuniary damages. 



