Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/620

 obtain for their benefit every advantage which could be secured. The provisions the Company promised to make for them were carefully canvassed by the officers of the city and finally accepted as sufficient. The Company bound itself in writing to educate the children in trades or professions. During the period of their apprenticeship, which, if they were boys, was to continue for seven years, or until the completion of their twenty-first birthday, or if girls, until they were married, they were to receive an ample quantity of meat, drink, apparel, and other necessaries. At the expiration of his term, each boy was to become a tenant, and was to be provided not only with fifty acres of land, but also with a cow, seed corn, implements, tools, utensils, weapons, and ammunition. The anxiety exhibited by the authorities of London with reference to these children was so great, that at a Quarter Court held in November, 1620, Mr. Caswell declared that the city stood more upon an &#8220;over-advantageous bargain&#8221; for them than it did upon the good of the plantation. As the rule of the Company had been to require the payment of five pounds sterling whenever a youth or child was transported by that body to Virginia to serve as an apprentice, this being the sum necessary to cover all the charges incurred in the conveyance, it was decided, in 1620, to reduce this amount to five marks, because English parents found no difficulty in binding out their offspring at home at that rate, and the payment of five pounds imposed. a heavier outlay than they were either willing or able to bear. The city officials distinctly asserted that neither they nor the Company had a right to compel