the "maids," as they were called in the old
chronicle from which we draw most of our knowledge concerning the early
settlers of Virginia.

Sir Edwin Sandys, being at the head of the London Company, in whose
hands were now the interests of the Virginia plantations, devised the
plan of sending out as wives to the Virginia adventurers a number of
respectable young women. It is probable that Sandys was instigated by
the thought of the dangers of mixed marriages with the Indians, which
were apt to result from the paucity of women of Caucasian race,--for
many young men had of late been tempted to try their fortunes in the New
World, and the proportion of women had failed among the settlers. Sandys
was in every way a believer in vigorous immigration, and in one year he
sent out one thousand two hundred and sixty-one new settlers; these he
was desirous of attaching to the soil of their new country,--a thing
that could be done only by aiding them there to establish a home. So he
secured a cargo of young women, ninety in number, who were willing to go
to a far land in search of husbands. Whether he had great difficulty in
finding such women, or whether matrimony as a prospect, even though with
an indeterminate partner, was so attractive to the average spinster of
the day as to make her eager to embrace any opportunity which held
certainty of result, cannot be known; but the "maids" went, though under
somewhat peculiar and even, to modern eyes, degrading conditions. For
the thrifty company was not minded that the prospective husbands should
have their wives as free gifts; no, they must pay for them as for any
other chattel, and the price fixed was one hundred and twenty pounds of
tobacco each, the value of this amount of the weed being about eighty
dollars at present values. One would think that, if the matter was to be
one of barter, the company might have set a higher price upon a wife,
even if only out of compliment to the sex; but doubtless the company
knew the true value of the goods which it purveyed.

It must be admitted that the worshipful company, notwithstanding its
parsimonious spirit in the matter of vend, acted in good faith with both
prospective husbands and present "maids." It had already made many
regulations intended to promote matrimony by distinguishing in favor of
married men; and in the selection and care of the feminine cargo
exported it took the utmost precautions to ensure the purity of the
women offered a