creditors, which causes them
to shelter themselves among the inhabitants of the Lower Counties of
Delaware Bay and of Carolina. The low price of tobacco has obliged many
of the planters to try their fortune elsewhere, and the currency of
money in Pennsylvania, which here is not, draws them to that province
from this."[8-13]

In Virginia the difficulty of securing desirable land because of the
large tracts patented by rich planters was usually assigned as the
reason for the migration of poor families. This view of the matter was
taken by Edward Randolph, the man who had won the undying hatred of the
people of Massachusetts by his attempts to enforce the Navigation Acts
there and by his attacks upon their charter. In 1696 Randolph did
Virginia the honor of a visit, and although encountering there none of
the opposition which had so angered him in New England, he sent to the
Board of Trade a memorial concerning the colony, criticising the
government severely. "It should be inquired into," he said, "how it
comes to pass that the colony (the first English settlement on the
continent of America, begun above 80 years ago) is not better inhabited,
considering what vast numbers of servants and others have yearly been
transported thither.... The chief and only reason is the Inhabitants and
Planters have been and at this time are discouraged and hindered from
planting tobacco in that colony, and servants are not so willing to go
there as formerly, because the members of the Council and others, who
make an interest in the Government, have from time to time procured
grants of very large Tracts of land, so that there has not for many
years been any waste land to be taken up by those who bring with them
servants, or by such Servants, who have served their time faithfully
with their Masters, but it is taken up and ingrossed beforehand, whereby
they are forced to hyer and pay a yearly rent for some of those Lands,
or go to the utmost bounds of the Colony for Land, exposed to danger and
often times proves the Occasion of Warr with the Indians."[8-14]

For their large holdings the wealthy men paid not one penny of quit
rents, Randolph said, and failed to comply with the regulations for
seating new lands. The law demanded that upon receipt of a patent one
must build a house upon the ground, improve and plant the soil and keep
a good stock of cattle or hogs. But in their frontier holdings the
wealthy men merely erected a little bark hut an