John Evelyn describes “a maiden of primitive life, the daughter of a poore labouring man, who had sustain’d her parents (some time since dead) by her labour, and has for many years refus’d marriage, or to receive any assistance from the parish, besides yᵉ little hermitage my lady gives her rent free: she lives on fourepence a day, which she gets by spinning; says she abounds and can give almes to others, living in greate humility and content, without any apparent affectation or singularity; she is continualy working, praying, or reading, gives a good account of her knowledge in religion, visites the sick; is not in the least given to talke; very modest, of a simple not unseemly behaviour, of a comely countenance, clad very plaine, but cleane and tight. In sum she appeares a saint of an extraordinary sort, in so religious a life as is seldom met with in villages now-a-daies.”[225] Footnote 225: Evelyn (John) _Diary_, Vol. III., p. 7, 1685. It is probable that the wages for spinning were advanced soon after this date, for Defoe writes in 1728 that “the rate for spinning, weaving and all other Manufactory-work, I mean in Wool, is so risen, that the Poor all over _England_ can now earn or gain near twice as much in a Day, and in some Places, more than twice as much as they could get for the same work two or three Years ago ... the poor women now get 12d. to 15d. a Day for spinning, the men more in proportion, and are full of work.”[226] “The Wenches ... wont go to service at 12d. or 18d. a week while they can get 7s. to 8s. a Week at spinning; the Men won’t drudge at the Plow and Cart &c., and perhaps get £6 a year ... when they can sit still and dry within Doors, and get 9s. or 10s. a Week at Wool-combing or at Carding.”[227] “Would the poor Maid-Servants who choose rather to spin, while they can gain 9s. per Week by their Labour than go to Service at 12d. a week to the Farmers Houses as before; I say would they sit close to their work, live near and close, as labouring and poor People ought to do, and by their Frugality lay up six or seven shillings per Week, none could object or blame them for their Choice.”[228] Defoe’s statement as to the high rate of wages for spinning is supported by an account of the workhouse at Colchester where the children’s “Work is Carding & Spinning Wool for the Baymakers; some of them will earn 6d. or 7d. a Day.”[229] But there is no sign of these higher wages in the seventeenth century. Footnote 226: Defoe, _Behaviour_, p. 83. Footnote 227: Defoe, _Behaviour_, pp. 84-5. Footnote 228: _Ibid._ p. 88. Footnote 229: _Acc. of several Workhouses_, p. 59, 1725.