be found in that county, Derrickson having carried off a maid-servant who was under articles of indenture to Mr. Richard Glover.[1] A few years later, Captain Francis Yeardley made an assignment, to a prominent firm of Rotterdam, of three negroes as security for the payment of a large amount of tobacco which he had promised to deliver in return for goods already received.[2] Powers of attorney from Dutch merchants to representatives in Virginia now become numerous. One instance among many was the appointment of John Merryman in 1647, to serve as the agent of Cornelius Starrman of Rotterdam in the collection of every form of indebtedness due the latter in the Colony.[3] In 1647, also, Thomas Lee was selected as one of the attorneys of William Scrapes of the same town.[4] The disordered condition of affairs in the mother country at this time, by withdrawing the attention of the English Government from Virginia, was doubtless highly promotive of the commerce between the planters and the Dutch, which only required absolute freedom for its expansion. In the winter of 1649, twelve ships from Holland arrived with cargoes of goods for exchange; the number of English ships coming in during this season was the same, indicating that the trade of the Colony was now equally divided between the Dutch and the English.[5] In
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1638-1648, p. 189, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1646-1651, f. p. 162.
- ↑ Records of York County, vol. 1638-1648, p. 301, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1616-1651, p. 165. There is the following entry in the same vol. f. p. 138, with reference to Lee: “It is ordered that three good hogsheads of tobacco be provided to be sent to Holland with Mr. Thomas Lee, to be sold there for the best advantage of Henry Seawell, to defray the charge of his passage and other charges of the said Seawell, who is to go to Holland with the said Lee.” Seawell, it appears, was an orphan, and Lee, his kinsman, probably his guardian.
- ↑ New Description of Virginia, p. 14, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. II.
