mpany of foot about fifty or sixty. A troop or company may be got
together at a day's warning.

CHAPTER X.

OF THE SERVANTS AND SLAVES IN VIRGINIA.

Sec. 50. Their servants they distinguish by the names of slaves for life,
and servants for a time.

Slaves are the negroes and their posterity, following the condition of
the mother, according to the maxim, _partus frequitur ventrem_. They are
called slaves, in respect of the time of their servitude, because it is
for life.

Servants, are those which serve only for a few years, according to the
time of their indenture, or the custom of the country. The custom of the
country takes place upon such as have no indentures. The law in this
case is, that if such servants be under nineteen years of age, they must
be brought into court to have their age adjudged; and from the age they
are judged to be of, they must serve until they reach four and twenty;
but if they be adjudged upwards of nineteen, they are then only to be
servants for the term of five years.

Sec. 51. The male servants, and slaves of both sexes, are employed together
in tilling and manuring the ground, in sowing and planting tobacco,
corn, &c. Some distinction indeed is made between them in their clothes,
and food; but the work of both is no other than what the overseers, the
freemen, and the planters themselves do.

Sufficient distinction is also made between the female servants, and
slaves; for a white woman is rarely or never put to work in the ground,
if she be good for anything else; and to discourage all planters from
using any women so, their law makes female servants working in the
ground tithables, while it suffers all other white women to be
absolutely exempted; whereas, on the other hand, it is a common thing to
work a woman slave out of doors, nor does the law make any distinction
in her taxes, whether her work be abroad or at home.

Sec. 52. Because I have heard how strangely cruel and severe the service of
this country is represented in some parts of England, I can't forbear
affirming, that the work of their servants and slaves is no other than
what every common freeman does; neither is any servant required to do
more in a day than his overseer; and I can assure you, with great truth,
that generally their slaves are not worked near so hard, nor so many
hours in a day, as the husbandmen, and day laborers in England. An
overseer is a man, that having served his time, has acquired the sk