he good of
his subjects we should not repine, whatever our sufferings are for it.
But on my soul it is the contrary of both."[5-35]

Nor is this the only direct testimony that the colonists were filled
with bitterness against the Navigation Acts. In 1673, during the war
with Holland, Sir John Knight declared that "the planters there do
generally desire a trade with the Dutch and all other nations, and speak
openly there that they are in the nature of slaves, so that the hearts
of the greatest part of them are taken away from his Majesty and
consequently his Majesty's best, greatest and richest plantation is in
danger, with the planters' consent, to fall into the enemy's hands, if
not timely prevented."[5-36] This is corroborated by the Council itself,
in an official letter to the King. "For in this very conjuncture had the
people had a distasteful Governor," they wrote, "they would have
hazarded the loss of this Country, and the rather because they doe
believe their Condicon would not be soe bad under the Dutch in Point of
Traffique as it is under the Merchants who now use them hardly, even to
extremity."[5-37]

It is evident, then, that throughout the entire reign of Charles II the
unhappy effects of the trade restrictions made of Virginia, which
formerly had been the land of opportunity for the poor man, a place of
suffering, poverty and discontent. The indentured servant who came over
after 1660 found conditions in the colony hardly more favorable for his
advancement than in England. The price of tobacco was now so low that it
was not possible for a man, by his unassisted efforts, to make a profit
by its cultivation. If Thomas Ludewell is correct in estimating the
return from the average crop at fifty shillings, the lot of the poor
man must have been hard indeed. Hungry he need not be, for food
continued to be abundant and easy to obtain, but of all that the
merchants gave him in return for his tobacco--clothing, farm implements,
household furnishings--he had to content himself with the scantiest
supply. And only too often his pressing needs brought him into hopeless
debt. As for imitating his predecessors of the earlier period in saving
money, purchasing land and servants and becoming a substantial citizen,
the task was well nigh impossible of accomplishment.

It would be expected, then, that even the most exhaustive investigation
could reveal but a few indentured servants, coming over after 1660, who
succeeded i