things as they would need
for the voyage, and should give them free passage on board the ship.
When they landed in Virginia they were to be perfectly free to marry or
not, as they pleased. If any of them did not at once find husbands to
their liking they were to be provided for in good homes until they chose
to marry.

But no man could marry one of these young women without paying for her
in tobacco, which was used instead of money in Virginia. The girls were
not to be sold, exactly, but it was expected that each colonist who
married one of them should pay the company as much as it had spent in
bringing her across the ocean.

And the men of the colony were glad enough to do this. When the shipload
of sweethearts landed at Jamestown a large number of men who were tired
of bachelor life hurried to the wharf to get wives for themselves if
they could. They went among the young maids, introduced themselves, got
acquainted, and did all the courting that was necessary in a very
little time. The young women were honest, good, well-brought-up girls,
and among the many men there were plenty of good, industrious, and brave
fellows who wanted good wives, and so all the girls were "engaged" at
once. The men paid down one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco
apiece--for that was the price fixed upon--and, as there was nothing to
wait for, the clergymen were sent for and the weddings took place
immediately.

It was an odd thing to do, of course, but the circumstances were very
unusual, and the plan of importing sweethearts by the cargo really seems
to have been a very good one. It must have been a strange sight when the
girls landed and met the men who had come to the town to woo and marry
them. And many of the girls must have felt that they took great risks in
coming three thousand miles from home and marrying men whom they had
known for so short a time; but it seems that the marriages were happy
ones, in spite of the haste in which they were made. The newly-married
pairs went to work in earnest to create good homes for themselves, and
when their English friends learned from their letters how happy and
prosperous they were, another company of sixty sweethearts set sail for
the colony and became the wives of good men.

It was in this way that the English camp at Jamestown was changed into a
real colony of people who meant to live in America and to build up a
thriving community here. Now that the men had wives and children to
prov