maids for wives."

Earlier, in August 1619, there had been another event, this an unplanned
one, when a group of negroes were brought to the Colony out of the West
Indies and sold from the ship which brought them for "victualls." This
created little attention at the time. Evidently these newcomers found
themselves bound for a time as servants rather than as slaves. The
matter of mass negro slavery with its profitableness in the tobacco
economy was, as yet, decades away. This event of 1619, however, may
properly be noted as the first move in this direction.

Immigration to the Colony continued to increase including even a number
of English youths, and measures were taken to meet the religious and
educational needs of the settlers. This was the period that saw the
attempt to establish a college at Henrico.

The reorganized Virginia Company, following its political changes,
renewed its efforts to expand the Colony and to stimulate profitable
employment. Heavy emphasis was placed on crop diversification and on the
establishment of a number of new industries including forest products,
wine, iron and glass, the latter attempted a second time possibly on
Glasshouse Point just outside of Jamestown Island. The planting of
mulberry trees and the growing of silkworms were advanced by the
dispatch of treatises on silk culture as well as silkworm eggs in a
project in which King James I himself had a personal interest.

The industrial and manufacturing efforts of these years, however, were
not destined to succeed. This condition was not due to any laxity on the
part of George Sandys, resident Treasurer in Virginia, who was something
of an economic on-the-spot supervisor for the Company. Virginia could
not yet support these projects profitably, and interest was lacking on
the part of the planters who found in tobacco a source of wealth
superior to anything else that had been tried. It was the profit from
tobacco that supported the improved living conditions that came
throughout the Colony.

These Englishmen who came to settle in the wilderness retained their
desire for the advantages of life in England. Books, for example, were
highly valued, and with the passage of the years were no uncommon
commodity in Virginia. As early as 1608, Rev. Robert Hunt had a library
at Jamestown, which was consumed by fire in January of that year. Each
new group of colonists seemingly added to the store on hand: _Bibles_,
_Books of Common Prayer_,