to make money. They had religious instructors who turned from a contemplation of the gold-paved streets of their heavenly home to talk of pay streaks in the mines of their wilderness home beyond the sea. And when they had arrived, they laid out a town site, boomer fashion, after which there was "no talk, no hope, no work but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, loade gold."
But, alas, the dirt did not pan out. They sent a cargo of glittering stuff home in the first Supply, but it was worthless, so they turned to "pitch, tar, and soap ashes"; also to sassafras, with such vigor that even the "gentlemen" of the colony went to work with axes and thereby blistered their soft hands until they swore wicked oaths "at every other stroke" of their axes. For this they were publicly punished, so that they were led to hold their tongues, commonly, whatever their thoughts might be.
But "pitch, tar, and soap ashes" also failed to make them rich, or even comfortable, and the colony was at the point of absolute extinction when John Rolfe, the squaw man, introduced the cultivation of tobacco in 1612. With tobacco came, at last, prosperity, but only at a terrible price. To grow the crop required the severest kind of toil, and, what was worse, the work had to be done under conditions that proved deadly to the colonists of every class.
With these facts held in mind let us recall the further fact that the greater part of the chopping and digging was done by "apprentices" — a real "working class" — a class of men (afterward women were included) who were brought from their homes in England under contract to serve for a stated number of
