Much of the ill health of the immigrants was undoubtedly due to the unwholesome conditions on board the ships during their passage from Europe. The vessels were often crowded with wretched men, women and children, and were foul beyond description. Gross uncleanliness was the rule rather than the exception. William Copps, in a letter to Deputy Treasurer Ferrar, says, "Betwixt decks there can hardlie a man fetch his breath by reason there arisith such a funke in the night that it causes putrifacation of blood and breedeth disease much like the plague." Often the number of persons that died at sea was frightful. One vessel lost one hundred and thirty persons out of one hundred and eighty. The disease started in this way was often spread in Virginia after the settlers had reached their new homes, and terrible epidemics more than once resulted. If the assertion of Berkeley that four out of five of the indentured servants died during the first year's residence in the colony, or Evelyn's statement that five out of six soon succumbed, be accepted as correct, the number of deaths must have been very large indeed. Among the hundreds of servants that were brought to the colony each year a mortality of over eighty per cent would have amounted in a few years to thousands. Statements made in regard to early Virginia history are so frequently inaccurate, and the conditions here described are so horrible that one is inclined to reject this testimony as obviously exaggerated. However, a close examination of the number of persons that came to Virginia from 1607 to 1649, and of the population between those dates forces us to the conclusion that the statements of Berkeley and Evelyn were not grossly incorrect. When, however, Evelyn adds that "old Virginians affirm, the sicknesse there the first thirty years to have killed 100,000 men," it is evident that this rumor was false.[185] Yet even this is valuable because it shows in an indefinite way that the mortality was very large. When we consider the fact that it was the lowest class of immigrants that were chiefly exposed to these perils it becomes evident how great a purifying force was exerted. The indentured servants more than any others had to face the hot sun of the fields, and upon them alone the climate worked with deadly effect. But disease was not the only danger that the indentured servant faced in those days. At times starvation carried off great numbers. Even after the colony had attained a certain degree of prosperity famines occurred that bore with fearful weight upon the servants. In 1636 there was great scarcity of food and in that year 1,800 persons perished. A servant, in 1623, complained in a letter to his parents that the food that was given him would barely sustain life, and that he had often eaten more at home in a day than was now allowed him for a week.[186]