[58] There was great competition to secure white labour in the
American plantations. Infamous touts circulated amongst the
poor, and any who were starving or wished for personal reasons
to emigrate engaged themselves with a ship-master or an
office-keeper to allow themselves to be sold for a term of years
in return for their passage money. On arrival at their
destination these poor wretches were sent to the plantations and
lived as slaves until the term for which they had contracted had
expired. In Virginia and Maryland, where most of them went, they
were driven to work on the tobacco fields with the negroes, and
were worse treated than the blacks, as being only leasehold
property whereas the negroes were freehold.
[59] Captain Edward Low was one of the bloodied of the pirates.
He served under Lowther until 1722, when he smarted on his own
account. After many atrocities he was taken by the French and
hanged, some time in 1724. A full account of him is given in my
edition of Johnson's _History of the Pirates_, issued in the
same series as the present volume.
[60] Belsize House was opened as a place of amusement, about
1720, by a certain Howell, who called himself the Welsh
Ambassador. At first it was a fashionable resort, but it soon
became the haunt of gamblers and harpies of both sexes.