Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/607

 prison; receiving wages which had been assessed by landowners who were interested in reducing them to the lowest point, wages which did not furnish an easy subsistence to his family even in years of plenty; compelled to purchase his supplies at prices set by the producers, and exposed to heavy penalties for the smallest infractions of law, it is not surprising that the great class of English agricultural laborers should in large numbers have been prepared to take advantage of the providential opportunity Virginia offered for the establishment of new homes after a service for a term of years in the Colony.

This unhappy condition was not confined to those who sought a livelihood in the fields. In his famous sermon, delivered April 18th, 1622, Copeland declared that some of the most diligent laborers in London had often complained to him with tears in their eyes that although they, their wives and children, rose at an early hour and wore away their flesh throughout the day in the performance of the most exacting tasks, went to bed late and fed upon brown bread and cheese, yet with difficulty they secured food enough to appease their hunger, or clothing sufficient to hide their nakedness. In the statute 13 and 14 Charles II, C. 12, there was a special reference to the great swarms of persons, stricken with the direst want, to be found in the cities of London and Westminster, and the same extreme poverty among the lower classes was, equally observable in other towns of England. The