Page:Anne Bradstreet and her time.djvu/229

Rh to take advantage of the straits into which many came through the scarcity of labor, and Winthrop, as early as 1633, had found it necessary to interfere. Wages had risen to an excessive rate, "so as a carpenter would have three shillings a day, a labourer two shillings and sixpence &c.; and accordingly those that had commodities to sell, advanced their prices sometime double to that they cost in England, so as it grew to a general complaint, which the court taking knowledge of, as also of some further evils, which were springing out of the excessive rates of wages, they made an order, that carpenters, masons, &c., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteen pence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England; oil, wine, &c., and cheese, in regard of the hazard of bringing, &c., excepted. The evils which were springing, &c., were: 1. Many spent much time idly, &c., because they could get as much in four days as would keep them a week. 2. They spent much in tobacco and strong waters, &c., which was a great waste to the Commonwealth, which by reason of so many commodities expended, could not have subsisted to this time, but that it was supplied by the cattle and corn which were sold to new comers at very dear rates." This bit of extortion on the part of the Colony as a government, does not seem to weigh on Winthrop's mind with by any means as great force as that of the defeated workmen, and he gives the colonial tariff of prices with even a certain pride: "Corn at six shillings the bushel, a cow at £20—yea, some at £24, some £26—a mare at £35, an ewe goat at 3