Note 35 — Chapter III · DOMESTIC SERVICE DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD
Reading edition
Neill, Terra Mariæ, pp. 201, 202,
“In better Times, e’re to this Land, I was unhappily Trapann’d.” Sot-Weed Factor, p. 6.
A young woman in search of employment was told that by going on board ship she would find it in Virginia, a few miles below on the Thames. Another young woman was persuaded to enter the ship, and was then sold into service. Cited by Bruce, I., 614, from Interregnum Entry Book, vol. 106, p. 84, and British State Papers, Colonial, vol. XIII., No. 29, 1.
The evil of “spiriting away” both children and adults became so great that in 1664 the Committee for Foreign Plantations interposed, and the Council created the office of Register, charged with the duty of keeping a record of all persons going to America as servants, and the statement that they had voluntarily left England. This act was soon followed by another fixing the penalty of death, without benefit of clergy, in every case where persons were found guilty of kidnapping children or adults. But even these extreme measures did not put an end to the evil; and it is stated that ten thousand persons were annually kidnapped after the passage of the act. Bruce, I., 614-619.