"I beseech your majesty, that I inform you, that each prisoner will be worth ten pound, if not fifteen pound, apiece, and, sir, if your majesty orders these as you have already designed, persons that have not suffered in the service will run away with the booty." Under this appeal of the lord chief justice the spoils were divided and his honor was in part gratified. Many of the convicts were persons of family and education, and were accustomed to ease and elegance.
"Take all care," wrote the monarch, under the countersign of Sunderland, to the government in Virginia, "take all care that they continue to serve for ten years at least, and that they be not permitted in any manner to redeem themselves by money or otherwise, until that term be fully expired. Prepare a bill for the assembly of our colony, with such clauses as shall be requisite for this purpose."
No legislature in any of the American colonies seconded such malice, for the colonies were never in full accord with James II. Tyranny and injustice peopled America with men nurtured to suffering and adversity. The history of our colonization is the history of the crimes of Europe, and some of the best families in America are descended from the indented servants of the Old World.
In Bristol, kidnapping had become common, and not only felons, but young persons of birth and education were hurried across the Atlantic and sold for money.
Never did a king prove a greater tyrant or more inhuman and cruel than James II. After the insurrection of Monmouth had been suppressed, all the sanguinary excesses of despotic revenge were revived. Gibbets were erected in villages to intimidate the people, and soldiers were intrusted with the execution of the laws. Scarce a Presbyterian family in Scotland, but was involved in proscription or penalties. The jails were overflowed, and their tenants were sent as slaves to the colonies. Maddened by the succession of murders; driven from their homes to caves, from caves to morasses and mountains; death brought to the inmates of a house that should shelter them; death to the benefactor that should throw them food; death to the friend that listened to their complaint; death to the wife or parent that still dared to solace husband or son; ferreted out by spies; hunted with dogs;—the fanatics turned upon their pursuers, and threatened to retaliate on the men who should still continue to imbrue their hands in blood. The council retorted by ordering a massacre. He that would not take the oath should be executed, though unarmed, and the recusants were shot on the roads, or as they labored in the field, or stood at prayer. To fly was admission of guilt; to excite suspicion was sentence of death; to own the covenant was treason.
Sometimes the lot of an indented slave was a happy one. Hundreds and thousands of fugitives flying from persecution came to the New World, while thousands of others were sent as convicts.
Virginia received her share of the latter.
One bright spring morning a ship from England entered the James River with a number of these indented slaves to be sold to the planters. Notice had been given of the intended sale and many planters came to look at the poor wretches huddled together like so many beasts in an old shed, and guarded by soldiers. Mr. Thomas Hull, a planter of considerable means, and a man noted for his iron will, was among those who came to make purchases.
"Well, Thomas, have you looked over the lot?" asked another planter.
"No, Bradley, have you?"
"Yes, though I am shortened in money, and unable to purchase to-day."
"Well, Bradley, what have you seen among them?"
"There are many fine, lusty fellows; but I was most interested and grieved in one."
"Why?"
"He is a man who has known refinement and ease, is perchance thirty-five and has with him a child."
"A child?"
"Yes, a maid not to exceed ten years, but very beautiful with her golden hair and soft blue eyes."
"Is the child a slave?"
"No."
"Then wherefore is it here?" asked Hull.
"His is truly a pathetic story as I have heard it. It seems he was a widower with his child wandering about the country, when he fell in with some of the Duke of Monmouth's people and enlisted. He was captured at Sedgemore, and condemned by Jeffries. The child was left to wander at will; but by some means she accompanied her father, managed to smuggle herself on shipboard, and was not discovered until the vessel was well out to sea. Then the captain, who was a humane man, permitted them to remain together to the end of the voyage. She is with her father now, and a prettier little maid I never saw."
"By the mass! I will go and see her," cried Hull. "If she be all you say, I will buy them both."
"But she is not for sale."
"Wherefore not?"
"She was not adjudged by the court."
With the cold, heartless laugh of a natural tyrant, Hull answered:
"It will be all the same. He who purchases the father will have the maid also."
He went to the place where the slaves were confined and gazed on the lot, very much as a cattle dealer might look upon a herd he contemplated purchasing. His gaze soon fastened on a fine, manly person in whose proud eye the sullen fires were but half subdued. He stood with his arms folded across his broad chest and his eye fixed upon a beautiful girl at his side.
The captive spoke not. A pair of handcuffs were on his wrists, and the chains came almost to the ground; but slavery and chains could not subdue the proud captive.
Hull delighted in punishing those whom he disliked. He was a papist at heart and consequently in sympathy with James II., so for this indented slave he incurred from the very first a most bitter dislike. When the slave was brought forth to be sold, he bid twelve pounds for him. This was two pounds more than the required price, and he became the purchaser.
"You are mine," cried Hull to the servant. "Come with me." The father turned his great brown eyes dim with moisture upon his child, and Hull, interpreting the look, added, "Hold, I will buy the maid also."
"She cannot be sold," the officer in charge of the slaves answered, "unless the master of the ship sees fit to sell her for passage money."
The master of the ship was present and declared he would do nothing of the kind.
"I will take her back to England, if she wishes to return," he added.
The child was speechless, her great blue eyes fixed on her father.
"What will you do with the maid?" asked Hull, who, having the father, felt sure the child would follow.
"I will return her to England free of charge, if she wills it."
"Who will care for her there?" asked Hull. "Do you know her relatives?"
"No; all are strangers to me."
The father, with his proud breast heaving with tumultuous emotion, stood silently gazing on the scene. He was a slave and he remembered that a slave must not speak unless permission be granted him by his master; but it was his child, the only link that bound him to earth, whose fate they were to decide, and, had he been unfettered, he might have clasped her to his bosom.
"Speak with the maid," suggested a by-stander, "and see if she has a friend in England who will care for her."
The master of the ship went to the bewildered child and, taking her little hand in his broad palm, said:
"Sweet little maid, you are not afraid to trust me?"
She turned her great blue eyes up to him and, in a whisper, answered:
"I am not."
"Have you a mother?"
"No."
"Have you any friends in England?"