Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/25

 and in case he could not be sold to a second one, turned over to the church wardens of the parish, and until the expiration of his term supported at the expense of his original employer, the amount required for this purpose to be levied, if necessary, upon the employer&#8217;s distrainable property. If still considered valuable when put up for sale at public auction, and in consequence found a purchaser, the sheriff under authority of the court could compel the original master to make good any deficiency in the charges incurred by the county in maintaining such a servant in the interval during which he continued under its protection. If the disabilities of the servant arose from no fault of the master, but were due to unavoidable causes in the course of nature, he had a claim upon his employer for support until the end of his term. This claim the master could not ignore without being exposed to a forfeit of ten pounds sterling annually to the parish, which was required by law to furnish the disabled servant with the necessaries of life in case the master shirked the responsibility of his maintenance.

These enlightened provisions of the code of 1705 were in accord with the general spirit, not only of the laws of 1645, 1657, and 1661, which permitted a servant to complain to the nearest commissioner if he was denied by a master the ordinary comforts to which he was entitled, but also of a statute of an earlier date prescribing the medical attention he should have a right to expect. The Assembly, having reason to believe in 1664 that the exorbitant charges of physicians had caused a large number of the planters to defer calling them in until it was too late to save the lives of their sick laborers, the fee demanded being frequently greater in value than the amount of capital invested in individual servants at the time of purchase, adopted a rule to prevent the abuse. It was