most important factor in the settlement
of the colony. In 1671, according to the statement of Governor
Berkeley, there were but 40,000 people in the colony.[165] The
immigration of servants had then been in progress for fifty years, and
the number brought over must have exceeded the total population at
that date. Even after making deductions for the mortality among the
laborers in the tobacco fields, which in the first half of this
century was enormous, we are forced to the conclusion that the
percentage of those that came as freemen was small.

We have already seen that the larger part of the servants were men
that came over to work in the tobacco fields. Great numbers of these
were drawn from the rural districts of England, where the pitiful
condition of thousands of laborers made it easy to find recruits ready
to leave for Virginia. So low were the wages given the farm hands at
this period that their most excessive labor could hardly insure
enough to support life, and, after years of hard work, they were often
compelled to throw themselves upon charity in their old age. The
pittance that they received seldom made it possible for them to secure
food enough to sustain properly their arduous labors. Many worked for
fourteen pence a day, and those that were most favored earned two
shillings. The condition of the poorer class of workmen in the cities
was, if possible, worse than that of the agricultural laborers, for
economic conditions had combined with unwise laws to reduce them to
the verge of starvation. Those that had not some recognized trade were
compelled to labor incessantly for insufficient wages, and many were
forced into beggary and crime. They were clothed in rags and their
dwellings were both miserable and unsanitary. The number of those
dependent upon charity for subsistence was enormous. In Sheffield, in
1615, a third of the entire population was compelled to rely in part
on charity. No wonder these poor wretches were willing to sell their
liberty to go to the New World! They had the assurance that whatever
happened to them, their condition could not be altered much for the
worse. In Virginia there was a chance of improvement, at home they
were doomed to live lives of drudgery and misery.[166]

But not all the indentured servants came from this class. Some were
persons of culture, and, on rare occasions, of means. The word
"servant" did not at that time have the menial signification that it
has acquired