Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/415

 was split to Virginia by the East India Company, which had undertaken to establish an English free school at Charles City. These mechanics were placed among the tenants on the college lands, and in a short time, four of them perished from the effect of the change of climate.

The necessity of importing mechanics belonging to a variety of trades did not cease with the existence of the Company. In 1638, many years after the dissolution of that organization, when a levy of tobacco was raised for the purpose of erecting a State House at Jamestown and putting the fort at Point Comfort in good repair, George Menefie, a prominent merchant in the Colony, was instructed to visit England, and, with a part of the tobacco procured by the levy, engage men who were skilful in building such work. It was one of the most serious drawbacks attending the employment of the indented servant, that, save in the case of youths, the term was too brief to admit of education in a mechanical trade. Landowners of wealth sought to overcome this difficulty by instructing their English merchants to forward to Virginia the mechanics whom they needed. Colonel Byrd not infrequently directed his correspondents in England to send him a carpenter, mason, or bricklayer, to take the place of one whose term was rapidly drawing to a close, and he always expressed a willingness under these circumstances to lay a larger sum than was usual in the instance of the ordinary servant. Fitzhugh made similar requests of his English merchants, declaring, like Colonel Byrd, his readiness to go to extraordinary expense to obtain English mechanics, on the ground that he lost heavily