w'd frequently take her
mistresses capps and stockins, hankerchers etc., to dresse herselfe
and away without leave among her companions. I may have said some
time or other when she has been in fault that she was fitt to live
nowhere but in Virginia, and if she w'd not mend her ways I should
send her thither tho I am sure nobody w'd give her passage thither
to have her service for twenty yeares she is such a high-spirited
pirnicious jade. Robin has been run away neare ten dayes as you
will see by the inclosed and this creature know of his going and of
his carrying out 4 dozen bottles of cyder, metheglin and palme wine
out of the cellar among the servants of the town and meat and I
know not w't. The bottles they broke and threw away after they had
drunk up the liquor, and they got up o'r sheep anight, killed a
fatt one, roasted and made merry w'th it before morning."

This wild Irish girl was indentured to the unfortunate Winthrop and his
more unfortunate wife for four years, and was to have fifty shillings
and some other start in the world when her time was up.

Out-of-the-way plantations fared no better in the question of service.
John Wynter, the head agent of the settlement at Richmonds Island in
Maine, wrote thus resentfully in 1639, to Mr. Trelawny, of the London
company, of his maid, one Priscilla Beckford:

"You write of some yll reports is given of my Wyfe for beatinge the
maide: yf a faire waye will not doe yt, beatinge must sometimes
vppon such Idlle girrels as she is. Yf you think yt fitte for my
Wyfe to do all the work, and the maide sitt still, and she must
forbear her hands to strike, then the work will ly vndonn. She hath
bin now 2-1/2 yeares in the house & I do not thinke she hath risen
20 tymes before my Wyfe hath bin vp to Call her, and many tymes
light the fire before she comes out of her bed. She hath twice gone
a mechinge in the woodes which we have bin fain to send all our
Company to seek her. We can hardly keep her within doors after we
are gonn to bed except we carry the kay of the door to bed with vs.
She coulde never milke Cow nor Goate since she came hither. Our men
do not desire to have her boyl the kittle for them she is so
sluttish. She cannot be trusted to serve a few piggs but my Wyfe
must commonly be with her. She hath written home I heare that she