population of Virginia from 15,000 in 1649 to 38,000 in 1670."[27]
This deduction is utterly unwarranted. The increase in population
noted here was due chiefly to the stream of indentured servants that
came to the colony at this period. At the time when the so-called
Cavalier immigration was at its height between one thousand and
fifteen hundred servants were sent to Virginia each year. In 1671
Governor Berkeley estimated the number that came over annually at
fifteen hundred, and it is safe to say that during the Commonwealth
period the influx had been as great as at this date. The constant wars
in Great Britain had made it easier to obtain servants for exportation
to America, for thousands of prisoners were disposed of in this way
and under Cromwell Virginia received numerous batches of unfortunate
wretches that paid for their hostility to Parliament with banishment
and servitude. Not only soldiers from King Charles' army, but many
captives taken in the Scotch and Irish wars were sent to the colony.
On the other hand after the Restoration, hundreds of Cromwell's
soldiers were sold as servants. If we estimate the annual importation
of servants at 1200, the entire increase of population which Fiske
notes is at once accounted for. Moreover, the mortality that in the
earlier years had been so fatal to the newcomers, was now greatly
reduced owing to the introduction of Peruvian bark and to the
precautions taken by planters to prevent disease on their estates.
Governor Berkeley said in 1671 that not many hands perished at that
time, whereas formerly not one in five escaped the first year.

Nor can the increased number of births in the colony be neglected in
accounting for the growth of population. The historian Bruce,
referring to the period from 1634 to 1649, in which the population
trebled, says: "The faster growth during this interval was due, not to
any increase in the number of new settlers seeking homes in Virginia,
but rather to the advance in the birth-rate among the inhabitants.
There was by the middle of the century a large native population
thoroughly seasoned to all the trying variations of the climate and
inured to every side of plantation life, however harsh and severe it
might be in the struggle to press the frontier further and further
outward."[28] It may then be asserted positively that the growth of
population between the dates 1649 and 1670 was not due to an influx of
Cavaliers.

Had many men of note fl