the Northern Colonies, the planters of Virginia obtained a large quantity of supplies which had originally come from Europe. The letters of Colonel William Byrd disclose the fact that he ordered through his correspondents in New England a great variety of goods, such as clothing, agricultural implements, and the like, a large proportion of which was not obtained by means of tobacco, but was purchased with bills of exchange.[1] His example was doubtless imitated by many of his contemporaries, whose letter books have not been transmitted to us.
The proximity of Maryland to Virginia naturally led to a very extensive trade between the two Colonies. As early as 1641, the records of the former show that its inhabitants purchased many of their supplies in the older communities south of the Potomac, and, on the other hand, that citizens of the latter were obtaining goods of different sorts from persons living in Maryland.[2] In 1642, Leonard Calvert acknowledged in court that he had at one time owed Thomas Stegg of Virginia as much as five thousand pounds of tobacco, and in the same year James Neale was granted process upon all the debts and merchandise which William Holmes of the same Colony possessed in Maryland, where he had been engaged in important transactions.[3] Suits on protested bills of exchange indicate at this time the volume of the mutual dealings; thus Margaret Brent of Maryland sought to compel Colonel George Ludlow of York to pay a bill of this kind for twenty pounds sterling returned from England dishonored, while Robert Kinsy of Virginia demanded of the court at
