five gallons, eight being required to make a ton. The loss in consequence of the number of casks, casks and contents not being discriminated in the weight, was estimated at one-third. The same objection was urged against the sugar-barrel, which, by increasing the number needed in transportation, added in proportion to the amount paid in freight, without any compensation for so much dead material.1

The commercial intercourse between Virginia and the islands of the West Indies was often of an illicit character, the duty on liquor, so much of which was imported into the Colony from these islands, causing many ship

1 Among the merchants of Barbadoes who made large sales of commodities in Virginia in the course of the last half of the seventeenth century were James Graham, Thomas Beard, John Felton, Richard Bats, Christopher Mercer, John Barwick, and John Sadler. The trade between Virginia and the West Indies was not confined to Barbadoes. The following is taken from the Records of Lower Norfolk County: "Know all men . . . that I, William Sheers, of London, merchant, have agreed with Mr. John Brett of Nansemond, merchant, that I, the said William Sheers, is to receive aboard ye ship Francis and Mary, now riding in Elizabeth River and bound for Antigua, Mavis and St. Christopher, within thirty days after ye date, six head of neat cattle with provisions for them, on the said Brett paying for their transportation 700 lbs. of the best muscovado sugar, to be paid at ye arrival of the ship at either of above places within ten days, the said Sheers to find water for said cattle until their arrival, and one hogshead of corn for every one of them, freight free; and for all other goods Brett shall have aboard is to pay at ye rate of 350 lbs. good muscovado sugar, the penalty being 1600 lbs. Virginia tobacco." This contract is dated 1657. See Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1656-1666, p. 133. In 1685, William Dundas of Jamaica appointed Henry Spratt and Antony Lawson of the "continent of Virginia" his agents in the collection of debts due him by the estate of Robert Calderwood. Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1675-1686, f. p. 202. In 1693, John Wilkinson, Governor of the Bermudas, empowered Thomas Walke of Lower Norfolk County to act as his attorney in that county. See original vol. 1685-1696, f. p. 194. Reference to

a Jersey ship will be found in Records of General Court, p. 99, and to a Jersey merchant's estate in Virginia, in ibid. p. 62.

owners and masters to make no report to the collector of the district in which their vessels came to anchor. The unlawful trading was especially prevalent on the Eastern Shore and in the Lower James, as these localities offered many facilities for eluding the vigilance of the officers of the revenue.1

In one instance only has evidence of a trade between South America and Virginia in the seventeenth century been discovered.2 In 1670, it was decided that the articles enumerated in the Act of Navigation should not be transported directly to Ireland. Previous to the passage of this statute, as well as subsequent to it, there was a considerable volume of commerce between Virginia and the Irish ports.3

There are a few indications of commercial intercourse between Virginia and Scotland in the seventeenth century. In 1638, a special warrant was issued to John Burnett of Aberdeen, granting him the privilege of trading in the Colony upon condition that he paid the customs due upon the tobacco to be exported by him, and that he gave bond that he would only unload in Scotland. In 1670, Thomas Bushrod, acting as the attorney of Thomas Lowry of Edinburgh, obtained judgment in the

1 See Official Letters of Gov. Spotswood, Virginia Historical Society Publications.

2 William and Mary College Quarterly, April, 1893, p. 152.

* This was a regulation of Parliament. See acquittance in Virginia, in 1670, of the ship Anthony of Londonderry, against which an information had been lodged by one of the collectors, on the ground that she was not a free vessel. Records of General Court, p. 40. For evidences of the trade between Virginia and Ireland, see Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1666-1675, pp. 46, 179; Records of Lancaster County, original vol. 1687-1700, pp. 167, 177; original vol. 16661682, p. 150.

4 British State Papers, Colonial, vol. IX, No. 118; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1638, p. 23, Va. State Library.

General Court against Samuel Onsteen for one hundred and twenty-seven pounds sterling, and four years later the same factor brought suit against William Drummond and Samuel Austin for the payment of a somewhat smaller amount.1 In 1697, Benjamin Harrison shipped a cargo of tobacco directly to Scotland, but it is worthy of note that the name of the vessel was illegally changed in order to enter the port of its destination.2

1 Records of General Court, pp. 5, 173.

2 British State Papers, Colonial, Virginia B. T., vol. II, B. 3.

CHAPTER XVI

MANUFACTURED SUPPLIES: FOREIGN continued

THE great bulk of imported supplies consumed in the Colony after the dissolution of the Company, as previous to that event, was obtained from England, with which kingdom the course of trade differed from that carried on with the northern settlements and with the West Indies only in volume. A detailed account of its character and the agencies by which it was conducted is of general application to the commercial intercourse of Virginia, in the seventeenth century, with all the countries having transactions with its people. Among the English merchants who brought in supplies after the revocation of the letters patent in 1624, and previous to 1700, there were few who could be described as casual dealers, that is, dealers who were without representatives in the Colony, to whom their goods could be consigned to be disposed of gradually, but who instead relied upon the chance of selling their commodities as they passed in their ships from river to river. The objections to this manner of business were numerous. As early as 1635, Captain Devries declared, as the result of his own observation, that all who conveyed supplies to Virginia with the object of exchanging them for tobacco, should erect private storehouses to be placed in the care of a factor, who should be required to remain in the Colony in order to be prepared at the proper season to take possession of

the crops of the planters to whom goods had been sold on credit, not improbably twelve months beforehand.1 The English merchants were in the habit of doing this, and in consequence enjoyed a notable advantage over their Dutch rivals. The opinion of Captain Devries was just as correct in its relation to the condition of trade fifty years later as it was at the particular period in which he wrote. In 1683, Colonel William Fitzhugh, who had a thorough knowledge of the course of business in Virginia, corresponding with certain shipowners in New England who had recently for the first time sent to the Colony a vessel loaded with merchandise, but with no one to dispose of it but the captain, who was ignorant of the country, stated that casual trading was destructive of all profit, because the owner of the goods, being in Virginia only for a short time, had to hasten his departure to reduce the cost attendant upon the navigation of his ship, and was, therefore, compelled to sell in order to secure a cargo of tobacco, whether its price was high or low. If, on the other hand, the merchandise, as soon as it was brought to the Colony, was placed in the hands of a factor, the latter could as occasion arose gradually dispose of it to advantage, being in a position to wait for an advance in rates if those prevailing were not satisfactory. When the vessel belonging to the owner of the commodities arrived, the products for which these commodities had previously from time to time been exchanged would be ready for delivery at certain places, and the expense of a long stay would be avoided. These facts were well known to the English traders and governed their action.2

The English merchants who supplied the planters with manufactured articles may be roughly divided into two

1 Devries' Voyages from Holland to America, p. 112.

2 Letters of William Fitzhugh, Feb. 5, 1682-83.