n establishing themselves in the Virginia yeomanry. And such,
indeed, is the case. Fortunately we have at hand for the period in
question the means of determining this matter with an exactness
impossible for the first half of the century. Nicholson's rent roll of
1704 supplies a complete list, with the exception of those in the
Northern Neck, of every landowner in Virginia. At the same time we have
in the Land Office at Richmond, the names of many thousands of persons
listed as headrights, constituting almost all the immigrants who came in
during the years from 1666 to the end of the century. Thus by comparing
the two lists and trying to identify on the rent roll the names found in
the patents, it is possible to fix the proportion of servants who won
for themselves at this time places among the landowning class.

Selecting the year 1672 as typical of the Restoration period, we find
that an examination of 672 of the names which are listed as headrights,
eleven only can be identified with any degree of certainty upon the rent
roll. Of 1116 names examined in the years from 1671 to 1674 inclusive,
only 26 are positively those of persons listed as landowners in 1704.
After making due allowance for the fact that uncertainty exists in a
number of other cases, and that some who prospered must have died in the
intervening years, it is safe to say that not more than five or six per
cent of the indentured servants of this period succeeded in establishing
themselves as independent planters.

These conclusions are borne out by the slowness with which the
population increased during the years following the passage of the
Navigation Acts. In the Commonwealth period the colony had advanced by
leaps and bounds, and the inhabitants, estimated at 15,000 in
1649,[5-38] were placed by Berkeley thirteen years later at
40,000.[5-39] Under the system which existed during these years, when
the colonists enjoyed a comparatively free trade, the population had
tripled. But after 1660, while the Virginia tobacco was dumped upon the
restricted English market and prices fell lower and lower, no such rapid
growth is noted. In 1671, nine years after his first estimate, Governor
Berkeley still placed the population at 40,000.[5-40] And even if we
accept the statement of the Virginia agents sent to England to secure a
charter for the colony that in 1675 the number of inhabitants was
50,000, it is evident that some pernicious influence was at work to
ret