Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/18

 existence, in the form of victuals, apparel, and lodging. During the administration of the Company, he subsisted on hominy boiled with milk alone, or with milk, butter, and cheese, or with fish and the flesh of bullocks. He was supplied with a definite quantity of corn by the week, amounting, as a rule, probably to fourteen cans, this being the allowance for that length of time in the else of the servants employed in working the lands of Martin&#8217;s Hundred. A graphic account of his food and clothing in 1622 has been transmitted to us in a letter written in that year by a young man of this class. The author&#8217;s spirits at the time of its composition were greatly depressed, but the details which he gives, instead of conveying the impression that the laborers at this period were very meanly situated, rather raises our conception of the advantages which they enjoyed. It should be remembered that the letter bore the date of the year in which the great massacre of the settlers by the Indians occurred, when the losses attending that event and the confusion following it, very naturally produced a condition of extraordinary hardship in the Colony, among masters as well as among servants. In times marked by peace and abundance, such as those immediately preceding the massacre or following it at a long interval, the various articles given the laborer either for subsistence or comfort must have been greater in quantity and better in quality. Richard Frethorne, the author of the letter referred to, declared that his food consisted of peas and loblolly, that is, a mass of gruel, chowder, or spoon meat, with one-fourth of a loaf