It was often that the almshouses and prisons of England were emptied in order to furnish laborers for America. It should be remembered, however, that many of the persons who were sent out as bond servants to America were political prisoners, and some of these were persons of quality. When there was a civil war in England the victorious party frequently disposed of its prisoners by sending them to the colonies as bond servants, or even as slaves. Thousands of Irish Catholics were sent over to America in this way, and it is said that the hardships which these unfortunate bondsmen suffered on the voyage was hardly less than those endured by the African slaves. It should be remembered, also, in the case of these white bond servants, as in that of the Negro slaves, the sale of human beings began innocently enough. At the time the English colonies were planted in America there was comparatively little free labor anywhere, and especially was this true of farm labor. The freedom and independence which seem now to be the natural rights of everyone were enjoyed by very few among the masses of the laboring people in Europe one hundred or two hundred years ago. At that time nearly everyone who worked with his hands was bound, in one way or another, to a master who had control over his actions to an extent which amounted to something like servitude. But it was to the man on the soil and in the country that freedom has everywhere come most slowly. In fact, it was not until the middle of the last century that the complete emancipation of the serfs took place in Western Europe. It was not until 1861, two years before Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation set the American Negroes free, that the Russian serfs were emancipated. It is necessary to remember these facts if we wish to understand how it came about that the slavery of the black man and the servitude of the white man came to be established in this country. When the first bond servants were sent to America it was not intended that they should be transferred and sold from one owner to another. It was merely intended that they should be bound to labor for the man who paid their passage money until that sum had been repaid. Gradually, however, in their eagerness to obtain labor, people lost sight of the fact that the merchandise they were selling was human beings. It was not long, therefore, before the bond servant was rated among the other property, the horses, the sheep and the cattle, in the inventories of the estate, and he could be disposed of by will and deed along with the remainder of the stock on the plantation.