Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/626

 have to be incurred. In anticipation of its hostility to the scheme of transportation, the Knight Marshal sought to conciliate the sentiment of that body by promising that if the band of &#8220;dissolute persons&#8221; were sent off to Virginia at once, he would supply the Company with men and women &#8220;of the quality and condition&#8221; which they desired. A committee was instructed at the Quarter Court assembling December 23d, 1619, to visit Bridewell, where the &#8220;dissolute persons&#8221; were to be collected by the Knight Marshal and after inspection to select those making the most favorable impression.

One of the most convincing pieces of evidence that the population of Virginia, during the existence of the Company, contained no element that would cause it really to resemble a penal colony in character, is furnished by the report of the census of 1624-25, in which the ages of the servants are given. There were ten persons engaged in cultivating the public lands at Hog Island, and their average age was only twenty. Of the twenty-one persons who were employed on the lands assigned for the use of the Governor at Paspaheigh and on the Main, the average age was twenty-two. This was also true of the thirteen servants of Captain Epes, the fourteen of Captain Roger Smith, and the twenty-three of Samuel Mathews. The average age of the twelve servants of Capt. Pott and the fifteen of William Barry was twenty-five. The average age of the fifteen servants of Captain Blaney and the twenty of Captain Gookin was twenty-four. The average age of the fourteen servants of Captain William Tucker was only twenty-one; of the twenty-nine of Abraham Piersey and the thirteen of William Pierce, twenty-six.