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sand pounds of tobacco or imprisonment for two years, and if the offence was committed a second time, it was to be considered a felony. It was found later that far more severe steps had to be taken for the strict enforcement of the statute. In March, 1676, when the prospect of an Indian war was imminent, it was provided that all who supplied the aborigines with arms, powder, and shot should not only forfeit their whole estates but suffer death in addition. The only persons allowed to furnish friendly Indians with match-coats, hoes, and axes were such as had been nominated by the county courts. One of the first of the laws passed by the Assembly controlled by Bacon made all trade with the aborigines illegal unless they were serving in the war with the English, in which case also no weapon or ammunition was to be given them.2 In the following year, the right of absolute free trade was granted to the Indian population of the Eastern Shore,3 and a year later there was a relaxation of the rule forbidding all commerce with the tribes of the Western Shore, since it had been found highly injurious to the inhabitants of the Colony. Certain places were now appointed as public marts, to which all Indians who were at peace with the whites were invited to come at a specified time. These marts were situated respectively in Henrico, Isle of Wight, New Kent, Rappahannock, Lancaster, Stafford, Accomac, and Northampton, and were to be open in March, April, and May, and in September and November, the occasion for each being restricted to a day in one of the spring months and a day in one of the autumn. For each mart, an account of all the trading which took place there was kept by a clerk appointed by the Governor. The Wicocomico Indians in Northumberland 2 Ibid., pp. 350, 351.

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. II, p. 337.
3 Ibid., p. 403.

and the Cheskiack in Gloucester were to be permitted to trade with the English under special regulations adopted by the authorities of the counties in which they resided.1 Three years subsequent to the passage of this Act, the rules it laid down were found to be the source of so much inconvenience that all obstructions to an absolute free trade with the friendly tribes were removed and the colonists were left at liberty to exchange commodities with them wherever and whenever the interests of both sides dictated. This rule was to remain in force only until the next Assembly convened, but in a few years it was reënacted in still more explicit terms. It was made "lawful for all persons at all times and at all places to carry on a free and open trade with all Indians whatsoever."2

No description of the mercantile condition of Virginia in the seventeenth century would be complete without some reference to the repeated but unsuccessful attempts to establish regular markets in the Colony. The fair was one of the oldest of the trade institutions of the mother country, having its origin and principal encouragement in an age when population was sparse, and when it was therefore necessary to have fixed occasions on which. people could come together from a distance and exchange. their products. The introduction of the fair into Virginia would have been natural not only on account of the commercial traditions of the inhabitants as scions of the English stock, but also because of the scattered population of the Colony. In 1649, it was decided to hold markets every week at Jamestown, which was one form of the English fair. These markets were to be restricted to Wednesdays and Saturdays. The boundaries of the market-place were to be carefully laid off. Execution was to issue upon any written and properly attested evidence

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. II, pp. 410-412. 2 Ibid., vol. III, p. 69.

of debt that had been drawn in proof of a bargain entered into in its limits at any time between eight in the morning and six in the afternoon without the usual requirement of first obtaining judgment. The clerk was to record, in a book to be provided for the purpose, every bond, bill, or other writing passed in a sale, and if the amount represented in a bargain exceeded three hundred pounds of tobacco, his fee was to be four pounds, and if under that figure, one pound. Ground seems to have been assigned for the site of this market-place.1

In 1655, the Assembly determined to establish one or more market-places in each county, to be situated in the neighborhood of a river or creek, with a view to greater accessibility. Here all the trade of the country was to be concentrated; the articles imported from England or elsewhere were to be brought to these points from the ports prescribed by law; and if the owners of such articles disposed of them without having done this, they were to be punished as forestallers. They were, however, left at liberty to sell their goods in any one which they preferred. All were to be kept open on certain days, but there was to be no conflict between the days of adjoining markets. The court-house, the prison, the offices of the clerk and sheriff, and, as far as possible, the churches and ordinaries of each county, were to be erected in the circuit of its market. When merchandise had been in the country for a period exceeding eight months, the owner could dispose of it wherever he wished without exposing himself to punishment as a forestaller.2 It is a curious commentary upon

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. I, p. 362. See Ibid., vol. I, pp. 397, 414.

2 Ibid., pp. 412-414. The following is from the records of Lancaster County under the date of 1655: "Whereas the western side of Currotoman River was only mentioned the last June Court for a market-place, and that by the Act for Stores the market-place might be on both sides of a small river if it is convenient for the inhabitants, it is ordered that

the provisions of this elaborate statute that only two years after its passage, the Assembly passed a second Act declaring that whoever established a market, "whether the merchants shall come for sale or not," shall be looked upon as a public benefactor; a tacit confession that the previous law, like all laws restricting the action of the traders, had proved a failure.1 The instructions given to Culpeper in 1679, to establish markets and fairs in the Colony, seem to have come to nothing. All endeavors of the kind were likely to have the same end, not only because they were opposed to the interests of the merchants but also because of the configuration of the country, which was unfavorable to any concentration of the population, even of the same parts, for however brief a time.

the said market-place extend also from the eastern side of the said river downwards two miles according to the said Act." Records, original vol. 1652-1657, p. 214.

1 Hening's Statutes, vol. I, p. 476.

CHAPTER XVII

MANUFACTURED SUPPLIES: DOMESTIC

IN describing the influences which led to the colonization of Virginia by the English people, it was pointed out that among the objects sought to be secured by that memorable enterprise were not only the acquisition of a virgin territory in which might be produced those raw materials that England was compelled to purchase at a heavy expense, and with a constant risk of interruption, from the Continental nations, but also the creation of a new market in which she might dispose of an enormous quantity of merchandise of her own manufacture. These two anticipations were closely related to each other. The principles they represented were the corner-stones of the famous mercantile system, which formed the commercial policy of the English Government from the beginning of the sixteenth to the close of the eighteenth century. The planters in Virginia were expected to export their raw materials to England, and in return to receive from the mother country the various supplies required. The exclusive attention given to tobacco from the earliest period in the history of the settlement defeated one of the leading purposes for which it was founded; that is to say, the new Colony failed to furnish England with the commodities which she had been exporting from Russia, Sweden, Holland, France, Spain, and the East. It will be remembered that the exportations in question left the

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