and Conversations have had no other gloss nor glory stampt on them
in their own Country, but the stigmatization of baseness, were here
(by the common civilities and deportments of the Inhabitants of this
Province) brought to detest and loath their former actions. Here
the Constable hath no need of a train of Holberteers (see note No.
28), that carry more Armour about them, than heart to guard him:
Nor is he ever troubled to leave his {49} Feathered Nest to some
friendly successor, while he is placing of his Lanthern-horn Guard
at the end of some suspicious Street, to catch some Night-walker, or
Batchelor of Leachery, that has taken his Degree three story high in a
Bawdy-house. Here’s no _Newgates_ for pilfering Felons, nor _Ludgates_
for Debtors, nor any _Bridewels_ (see note No. 29) to lash the soul of
Concupiscence into a chast Repentance. For as there is none of these
Prisons in _Mary-Land_, so the merits of the Country deserves none,
but if any be foully vitious, he is so reserv’d in it, that he seldom
or never becomes popular. Common Alehouses (whose dwellings are the
only Receptacles of debauchery and baseness, and those Schools that
trains up Youth, as well as Age, to ruine), in this Province there
are none; neither hath Youth his swing or range in such a profuse and
unbridled liberty as in other Countries; for from an antient Custom
at the primitive seating of the place, the Son works as well as the
Servant (an excellent cure for untam’d Youth), so that before they
eat their bread, they are commonly taught how to earn it; which makes
them by that time Age speaks them capable of receiving that which
their Parents indulgency is ready to give them, and which partly is
by their own laborious industry purchased, they manage it with such
a serious, grave and watching care, as if they had been Masters of
Families, trained up in that domestick and governing power from their
Cradles. These Christian Natives of the Land, {50} especially those
of the Masculine Sex, are generally conveniently confident, reservedly
subtile, quick in apprehending, but slow in resolving; and where they
spy profit sailing towards them with the wings of a prosperous gale,
there they become much familiar. The Women differ something in this
point, though not much: They are extreme bashful at the first view,
but after a continuance of time hath brought them acquainted, there
they become discreetly familiar, and are much more talkative then men.
All Complemental Courtships, drest up in critical Rarities, are meer
strangers to them, plain wit comes nearest their Genius; so that he
that intends to Court a _Mary-Land_ Girle, must have something more
than the Tautologies of a long-winded speech to carry on his design, or
else he may (for ought I know) fall under the contempt of her frown,
and his own windy Oration. (See note No. 30).
One great part of the Inhabitants of this Province are desiredly
Zealous, great pretenders to Holiness; and where any thing appears that
carries on the Frontispiece of its Effigies the stamp of Religion,
though fundamentally never so imperfect, they are suddenly taken with
it, and out of an eager desire to any thing that’s new, not weighing
the sure matter in the Ballance of Reason, are very apt to be catcht.
(See note No. 31). _Quakerism_ is the only Opinion that bears the
Bell away (see note No. 32): The _Anabaptists_ (see note No. 33)
have little to say here, {51} as well as in other places, since the
Ghost of _John_ of _Leyden_ haunts their Conventicles. The _Adamite_,
_Ranter_, and _Fifty-Monarchy men_, _Mary-Land_ cannot, nay will not
digest within her liberal stomach such corroding morsels: So that this
Province is an utter Enemy to blasphemous and zealous Imprecations,
drain’d from the Lymbeck of hellish and damnable Spirits, as well
as profuse prophaness, that issues from the prodigality of none but
cract-brain Sots.
_’Tis said the Gods lower down that Chain above,_
_That tyes both Prince and Subject up in Love;_
_And if this Fiction of the Gods be true,_
_Few_, Mary-Land, _in this can boast but you:_
_Live ever blest, and let those Clouds that do_
_Eclipse most States, be always Lights to you;_
_And dwelling so, you may for ever be_
_The only Emblem of Tranquility._
{52}
CHAP. III.
_The necessariness of Servitude proved, with the common usage of
Servants in_ Mary-Land, _together with their Priviledges_.
As there can be no Monarchy without the Supremacy of a King and Crown,
nor no King without Subjects, nor any Parents without it be by the
fruitful off-spring of Children; neither can there be any Masters,
unless it be by the inferior Servitude of those that dwell under
them, by a commanding enjoynment: And since it is ordained from the
original and superabounding wisdom of all things, That there should be
Degrees and Diversities amongst the Sons of men, in acknowledging of a
Superiority from Inferiors to Superiors; the Servant with a reverent
and befitting Obedience is as liable to this duty in a measurable
performance to him whom he serves, as the loyalest of Subjects to his
Prince. Then since it is a common and ordained Fate, that there must
be Servants as well as Masters, and that good Servitudes are those
Colledges of Sobriety that checks in the giddy and wild-headed youth
from his profuse and uneven course of life, by a limited constrainment,
as well as it otherwise agrees with the moderate and discreet Servant:
Why should there be such an exclusive {53} Obstacle in the minds and
unreasonable dispositions of many people, against the limited time of
convenient and necessary Servitude, when it is a thing so requisite,
that the best of Kingdoms would be unhing’d from their quiet and well
setled Government without it. Which levelling doctrine we here of
_England_ in this latter age (whose womb was truss’d out with nothing
but confused Rebellion) have too much experienced, and was daily rung
into the ears of the tumultuous Vulgar by the Bell-weather Sectaries of
the Times: But (blessed be God) those Clouds are blown over, and the
Government of the Kingdom coucht under a more stable form.
There is no truer Emblem of Confusion either in Monarchy or Domestick
Governments, then when either the Subject, or the Servant, strives for
the upper hand of his Prince, or Master, and to be equal with him,
from whom he receives his present subsistance: Why then, if Servitude
be so necessary that no place can be governed in order, nor people
live without it, this may serve to tell those which prick up their
ears and bray against it, That they are none but Asses, and deserve
the Bridle of a strict commanding power to reine them in: For I’me
certainly confident, that there are several Thousands in most Kingdoms
of Christendom, that could not at all live and subsist, unless they had
served some prefixed time, to learn either some Trade, Art, or Science,
and by either of them to extract their present livelihood. {54}
Then methinks this may stop the mouths of those that will undiscreetly
compassionate them that dwell under necessary Servitudes; for let but
Parents of an indifferent capacity in Estates, when their Childrens age
by computation speak them seventeen or eighteen years old, turn them
loose to the wide world, without a seven years working Apprenticeship
(being just brought up to the bare formality of a little reading
and writing) and you shall immediately see how weak and shiftless
they’le be towards the maintaining and supporting of themselves; and
(without either stealing or begging) their bodies like a Sentinel must
continually wait to see when their Souls will be frighted away by the
pale Ghost of a starving want.
Then let such, where Providence hath ordained to live as Servants,
either in _England_ or beyond Sea, endure the prefixed yoak of their
limited time with patience, and then in a small computation of years,
by an industrious endeavour, they may become Masters and Mistresses
of Families themselves. And let this be spoke to the deserved praise
of _Mary-Land_, That the four years I served there were not to me so
slavish, as a two years Servitude of a Handicraft Apprenticeship was
here in _London_; _Volenti enim nil difficile_: Not that I write this
to seduce or delude any, or to draw them from their native soyle, but
out of a love to my Countrymen, whom in the general I wish well to,
and that the lowest of them may live in such a capacity of Estate, as
that the bare interest of {55} their Livelihoods might not altogether
depend upon persons of the greatest extendments.
Now those whose abilities here in _England_ are capable of maintaining
themselves in any reasonable and handsom manner, they had best so to
remain, lest the roughness of the Ocean, together with the staring
visages of the wilde Animals, which they may see after their arrival
into the Country, may alter the natural dispositions of their bodies,
that the stay’d and solid part that kept its motion by Doctor _Trigs_
purgationary operation, may run beyond the byas of the wheel in a
violent and laxative confusion.
Now contrarywise, they who are low, and make bare shifts to buoy
themselves up above the shabby center of beggarly and incident
casualties, I heartily could wish the removal of some of them into
_Mary-Land_, which would make much better for them that stay’d behind,
as well as it would advantage those that went.
They whose abilities cannot extend to purchase their own transportation
into _Mary-Land_ (and surely he that cannot command so small a sum for
so great a matter, his life must needs be mighty low and dejected), I
say they may for the debarment of a four years sordid liberty, go over
into this Province and there live plentiously well. And what’s a four
years Servitude to advantage a man all the remainder of his dayes,
making his predecessors happy in his {56} sufficient abilities, which
he attained to partly by the restrainment of so small a time?
Now those that commit themselves into the care of the Merchant to carry
them over, they need not trouble themselves with any inquisitive search
touching their Voyage; for there is such an honest care and provision
made for them all the time they remain aboard the Ship, and are sailing
over, that they want for nothing that is necessary and convenient.
The Merchant commonly before they go aboard the Ship, or set themselves
in any forwardness for their Voyage, has Conditions of Agreements
drawn between him and those that by a voluntary consent become his
Servants, to serve him, his Heirs or Assigns, according as they in
their primitive acquaintance have made their bargain (see note No.
34), some two, some three, some four years; and whatever the Master or
Servant tyes himself up to here in _England_ by Condition, the Laws of
the Province will force a performance of when they come there: Yet here
is this Priviledge in it when they arrive, If they dwell not with the
Merchant they made their first agreement withall, they may choose whom
they will serve their prefixed time with; and after their curiosity
has pitcht on one whom they think fit for their turn, and that they
may live well withall, the Merchant makes an Assignment of the
Indenture over to him whom they of their free will have chosen to be
their Master, in the same nature as we here in _England_ (and no {57}
otherwise) turn over Covenant Servants or Apprentices from one Master
to another. Then let those whose chaps are always breathing forth those
filthy dregs of abusive exclamations, which are Lymbeckt from their
sottish and preposterous brains, against this Country of _Mary-Land_,
saying, That those which are transported over thither, are sold in open
Market for Slaves, and draw in Carts like Horses; which is so damnable
an untruth, that if they should search to the very Center of Hell, and
enquire for a Lye of the most antient and damned stamp, I confidently
believe they could not find one to parallel this: For know, That
the Servants here in _Mary-Land_ of all Colonies, distant or remote
Plantations, have the least cause to complain, either for strictness
of Servitude, want of Provisions, or need of Apparel: Five dayes and a
half in the Summer weeks is the alotted time that they work in; and for
two months, when the Sun predominates in the highest pitch of his heat,
they claim an antient and customary Priviledge, to repose themselves
three hours in the day within the house, and this is undeniably granted
to them that work in the Fields.
In the Winter time, which lasteth three months (viz.), _December_,
_January_, and _February_, they do little or no work or imployment,
save cutting of wood to make good fires to sit by, unless their
Ingenuity will prompt them to hunt the Deer, or Bear, or recreate
themselves in Fowling, to slaughter the Swans, Geese, and Turkeys
(which this Country affords in a most {58} plentiful manner): For
every Servant has a Gun, Powder and Shot allowed him, to sport him
withall on all Holidayes and leasurable times, if he be capable of
using it, or be willing to learn.
Now those Servants which come over into this Province, being
Artificers, they never (during their Servitude) work in the Fields, or
do any other imployment save that which their Handicraft and Mechanick
endeavours are capable of putting them upon, and are esteem’d as well
by their Masters, as those that imploy them, above measure. He that’s
a Tradesman here in _Mary-Land_ (though a Servant), lives as well as
most common Handicrafts do in _London_, though they may want something
of that Liberty which Freemen have, to go and come at their pleasure;
yet if it were rightly understood and considered, what most of the
Liberties of the several poor Tradesmen are taken up about, and what a
care and trouble attends that thing they call Liberty, which according
to the common translation is but Idleness, and (if weighed in the
Ballance of a just Reason) will be found to be much heavier and cloggy
then the four years restrainment of a _Mary-Land_ Servitude. He that
lives in the nature of a Servant in this Province, must serve but four
years by the Custom of the Country; and when the expiration of his
time speaks him a Freeman, there’s a Law in the Province, that enjoyns
his Master whom he hath served to give him Fifty Acres of Land, Corn
to serve him a whole year, three Suits of Apparel, {59} with things
necessary to them, and Tools to work withall; so that they are no
sooner free, but they are ready to set up for themselves, and when once
entred, they live passingly well. (See note No. 35).
The Women that go over into this Province as Servants, have the best
luck here as in any place of the world besides; for they are no sooner
on shoar, but they are courted into a Copulative Matrimony, which some
of them (for aught I know) had they not come to such a Market with
their Virginity, might have kept it by them untill it had been mouldy,
unless they had let it out by a yearly rent to some of the Inhabitants
of _Lewknors-Lane_ (see note No. 36), or made a Deed of Gift of it
to Mother _Coney_, having only a poor stipend out of it, untill the
Gallows or Hospital called them away. Men have not altogether so good
luck as Women in this kind, or natural preferment, without they be good
Rhetoricians, and well vers’d in the Art of perswasion, then (probably)
they may ryvet themselves in the time of their Servitude into the
private and reserved favour of their Mistress, if Age speak their
Master deficient.
In short, touching the Servants of this Province, they live well in the
time of their Service, and by their restrainment in that time, they are
made capable of living much better when they come to be free; which
in several other parts of the world I have observed, That after some
servants have brought their indented and limited time to a just and
legal period {60} by Servitude, they have been much more incapable of
supporting themselves from sinking into the Gulf of a slavish, poor,
fettered, and intangled life, then all the fastness of their prefixed
time did involve them in before.
Now the main and principal Reason of those incident casualties, that
wait continually upon the residences of most poor Artificers, is (I
gather) from the multiciplicity or innumerableness of those several
Companies of Tradesmen, that dwell so closely and stiflingly together
in one and the same place, that like the chafing Gum in Watered-Tabby,
they eat into the folds of one anothers Estates. And this might easily
be remedied, would but some of them remove and disperse distantly where
want and necessity calls for them; their dwellings (I am confident)
would be much larger, and their conditions much better, as well in
reference to their Estates, as to the satisfactoriness of their minds,
having a continual imployment, and from that imployment a continual
benefit, without either begging, seducing, or flattering for it,
encroaching that one month from one of the same profession, that
they are heaved out themselves the next. For I have observed on the
other side of _Mary-Land_, that the whole course of most Mechanical
endeavours, is to catch, snatch, and undervalue one another, to get
a little work, or a Customer; which when they have attained by their
lowbuilt and sneaking circumventings, it stands upon so flashy,
mutable, and transitory {61} a foundation, that the best of his hopes
is commonly extinguisht before the poor undervalued Tradesman is warm
in the enjoyment of his Customer.
Then did not a cloud of low and base Cowardize eclipse the Spirits
of these men, these things might easily be diverted; but they had as
live take a Bear by the tooth, as think of leaving their own Country,
though they live among their own National people, and are governed by
the same Laws they have here, yet all this wont do with them; and all
the Reason they can render to the contrary is, There’s a great Sea
betwixt them and _Mary-Land_, and in that Sea there are Fishes, and
not only Fishes but great Fishes, and then should a Ship meet with
such an inconsiderable encounter as a Whale, one blow with his tayle,
and then _Lord have Mercy upon us_: Yet meet with these men in their
common Exchange, which is one story high in the bottom of a Celler,
disputing over a Black-pot, it would be monstrously dreadful here to
insert the particulars, one swearing that he was the first that scaled
the Walls of _Dundee_, when the Bullets flew about their ears as thick
as Hailstones usually fall from the Sky; which if it were but rightly
examined, the most dangerous Engagement that ever he was in, was but
at one of the flashy battels at _Finsbury_, (see note No. 37), where
commonly there’s more Custard greedily devoured, than men prejudiced by
the rigour of the War. Others of this Company relating their several
dreadful exploits, {62} and when they are just entring into the
particulars, let but one step in and interrupt their discourse, by
telling them of a Sea Voyage, and the violency of storms that attends
it, and that there are no back-doors to run out at, which they call,
_a handsom Retreat and Charge again_; the apprehensive danger of this
is so powerful and penetrating on them, that a damp sweat immediately
involves their Microcosm, so that _Margery_ the old Matron of the
Celler, is fain to run for a half-peny-worth of _Angelica_ to rub their
nostrils; and though the Port-hole of their bodies has been stopt from
a convenient Evacuation some several months, theyl’e need no other
Suppository to open the Orifice of their Esculent faculties then this
Relation, as their Drawers or Breeches can more at large demonstrate to
the inquisitive search of the curious.
Now I know that some will be apt to judge, that I have written this
last part out of derision to some of my poor Mechanick Country-men:
Truly I must needs tell those to their face that think so of me, that
they prejudice me extremely, by censuring me as guilty of any such
crime: What I have written is only to display the sordidness of their
dispositions, who rather than they will remove to another Country to
live plentiously well, and give their Neighbors more Elbow-room and
space to breath in, they will croud and throng upon one another, with
the pressure of a beggarly and unnecessary weight. {63}
That which I have to say more in this business, is a hearty and
desirous wish, that the several poor Tradesmen here in _London_ that
I know, and have borne an occular testimony of their want, might live
so free from care as I did when I dwelt in the bonds of a four years
Servitude in _Mary-Land_.
_Be just (Domestick Monarchs) unto them_
_That dwell as Household Subjects to each Realm;_
_Let not your Power make you be too severe,_
_Where there’s small faults reign in your sharp Career:_
_So that the Worlds base yelping Crew_
_May’nt bark what I have wrote is writ untrue,_
_So use your Servants, if there come no more,_
_They may serve Eight, instead of serving Four._
{64}
CHAP. IV.
_Upon Trafique, and what Merchandizing Commodities this Province
affords, also how Tobacco is planted and made fit for Commerce._
Trafique, Commerce, and Trade, are those great wheeles that by their
circular and continued motion, turn into most Kingdoms of the Earth
the plenty of abundant Riches that they are commonly fed withall: For
Trafique in his right description, is the very soul of a Kingdom; and
should but Fate ordain a removal of it for some years, from the richest
and most populous Monarchy that dwells in the most fertile clyme of
the whole Universe, he would soon find by a woful experiment, the miss
and loss of so reviving a supporter. And I am certainly confident,
that _England_ would as soon feel her feebleness by withdrawment of so
great an upholder; as well in reference to the internal and healthful
preservative of her Inhabitants, for want of those Medicinal Drugs that
are landed upon her Coast every year, as the external profits, Glory
and beneficial Graces that accrue by her.
_Paracelsus_ might knock down his Forge, if Trafique and Commerce
should once cease, and grynde the hilt of his Sword into Powder, and
take some of the Infusion to make him so valorous, that he might cut
his {65} own Throat in the honor of _Mercury_: _Galen_ might then
burn his Herbal, and like _Joseph of Arimathea_, build him a Tomb in
his Garden, and so rest from his labours: Our Physical Collegians of
_London_ would have no cause then to thunder Fire-balls at _Nich.
Culpeppers_ Dispensatory (see note No. 38). All Herbs, Roots, and
Medicines would bear their original christening, that the ignorant
might understand them: _Album grecum_ would not be _Album grecum_ (see
note No. 39) then, but a Dogs turd would be a Dogs turd in plain terms,
in spight of their teeth.
If Trade should once cease, the Custom-house would soon miss her
hundreds and thousands Hogs-heads of Tobacco (see note No. 40), that
use to be throng in her every year, as well as the Grocers would in
their Ware-houses and Boxes, the Gentry and Commonalty in their Pipes,
the Physician in his Drugs and Medicinal Compositions; The (leering)
Waiters for want of imployment, might (like so many _Diogenes_)
intomb themselves in their empty Casks, and rouling themselves off
the Key into the _Thames_, there wander up and down from tide to tide
in contemplation of _Aristotles_ unresolved curiosity, until the
rottenness of their circular habitation give them a _Quietus est_,
and fairly surrender them up into the custody of those who both for
profession, disposition and nature, lay as near claim to them, as if
they both tumbled in one belly, and for name they jump alike, being
according to the original translation both _Sharkes_. {66}
Silks and Cambricks, and Lawns to make sleeves, would be as soon miss’d
at Court, as Gold and Silver would be in the Mint and Pockets: The
Low-Country Soldier would be at a cold stand for Outlandish Furrs to
make him Muffs, to keep his ten similitudes warm in the Winter, as well
as the Furrier for want of Skins to uphold his Trade.
Should Commerce once cease, there is no Country in the habitable
world but would undoubtedly miss that flourishing, splendid and rich
gallantry of Equipage, that Trafique maintained and drest her up in,
before she received that fatal Eclipse: _England_, _France_, _Germany_
and _Spain_, together with all the Kingdoms——
But stop (good Muse) lest I should, like the Parson of _Pancras_ (see
note No. 41), run so far from my Text in half an hour, that a two hours
trot back again would hardly fetch it up: I had best while I am alive
in my Doctrine, to think again of _Mary-Land_, lest the business of
other Countries take up so much room in my brain, that I forget and
bury her in oblivion.
The three main Commodities this Country affords for Trafique, are
Tobacco, Furrs, and Flesh. Furrs and Skins, as Beavers, Otters,
Musk-Rats, Rackoons, Wild-Cats, and Elke or Bufieloe (see note No. 42),
with divers others, which were first made vendible by the _Indians_ of
the Country, and sold to the Inhabitant, and by them to the Merchant,
and so {67} transported into _England_ and other places where it
becomes most commodious.