“To Be in England Again”: An Indentured Servant in Virginia

Background: The dangers posed by disease and hostile Native people, the pain of separation from home, and the persistent problem of securing adequate food left many new settlers in a state of despair. This letter, dated March 20, 1623, is from Richard Frethorne, an indentured servant, to his parents in England. Frethorne had landed in Virginia three months earlier. Two-thirds of his fellow ship passengers had died since arriving in the colony. Frethorne asks his parents to “redeem,“ that is, buy out, his indenture.

Loving and kind father and mother . . . this is to let you understand that I your child am in a most heavy case by reason of the nature of the country [which] is such that it causeth much sickness, [such] as the scurvy and the bloody flux, and diverse other diseases, which maketh the body very poor and weak. And when we are sick there is nothing to comfort us, for since I came out of the ship, I never ate anything but peas and loblollie (that is water gruel); as for deer or venison I never saw any since I came into this land; there is indeed some fowl, but we are not allowed to go and get it, but must work hard both early and late for a mess of water gruel, and a mouthful of bread and beef. A mouthful of bread, for a penny loaf must serve for 4men which is most pitiful if you did know as much as I, when people cry out day and night—Oh! that they were in England without their limbs—and would [sacrifice] any limb to be in England again. . . . 

We live in fear of the enemy every hour, yet we have had to combat with them . . . and we took two alive, and make slaves of them . . . for we are in great danger, for our Plantation is very weak, by reason of the dearth, and sickness, of our company. . . . 

But I am not half, a quarter so strong as I was in England, and all is for want of victuals, for I do protest unto you that I have eaten more in a day at home then I have allowed me here for a week. . . . If you love me you will redeem me suddenly, for which I do entreat and beg, and if you cannot get the merchants to redeem me for some little money then for God’s sake get a gathering or entreat some good folks to lay out some

little sum of money, in meal, and cheese and butter, and beef. . . . 

Good father do not forget me, but have mercy and pity my miserable case. I know if you did but see me you would weep to see me, for I have but one suit, but it is a strange one, . . . and as for my part I have set down my resolution that . . . the answer of this letter will be life or death to me, therefore good father send as soon as you can . . . 

Source: Susan Kingsbury, ed., The Records of the Virginia Company of London (1935).