Harvey, the Governor, was rapacious; the King at
home, autocratic. Meanwhile, signs of change and of unrest were not wanting
in Europe. England was hastening toward revolution; in Germany the Thirty
Years' War was in mid-career; France and Italy were racked by strife; over
the world the peoples groaned under the strain of oppression. In science,
too, there was promise of revolution. Harvey--not that Governor Harvey of
Virginia, but a greater in England was writing upon the circulation of the
blood. Galileo brooded over ideas of the movement of the earth; Kepler,
over celestial harmonies and solar rule. Descartes was laying the
foundation of a new philosophy.
In the meantime, far across the Atlantic, bands of Virginians went out
against the Indians -- who might, or might not, God knows! have put in a
claim to be considered among the oppressed peoples. In Virginia the fat,
black, tobacco-fields, steaming under a sun like the sun of Spain, called
for and got more labor and still more labor. Every little sailing ship
brought white workmen -- called servants -- consigned, indentured, apprenticed
to many-acred planters. These, in return for their passage money, must
serve Laban for a term of years, but then would receive Rachel, or at least
Leah, in the shape of freedom and a small holding and provision with which
to begin again their individual life. If they were ambitious and energetic
they might presently be able, in turn, to import labor for their own acres.
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