of two hundred tons and an amount in proportion for every ship of greater or smaller burden; a proportionate quantity of shot, match, and other material used in defence was also to be delivered.[1] The merchants of all classes complained of these charges as well as of the tax imposed for administering the oath of allegiance to each passenger who arrived in the Colony and for registering each hogshead sent out.[2] In 1643, the law of 1633 was reënacted.[3] The quantity of powder to be paid in settlement of the castle duty was in 1645 increased from one-quarter of a pound to one-half for every ton in the burden of the ship, the quantity of shot or lead being fixed at three pounds. As a means of ensuring a full collection of these articles, officers were appointed upon every river of importance in the inhabited parts of Virginia, who were to receive the duties in kind or in valuable commodities, and in case of collusion between the master of a vessel and the person in charge of a port, the recognizance of the latter was to be forfeited.[4] The change in the material in which the castle duties were to be paid, tobacco or whatever product formed the freight of the ship being substituted for powder and shot, and delivered not when the vessel arrived but when she departed, is to be ascribed to the fact that a few years before, these duties had, under an Act of the General Assembly, been appropriated to the Governor instead of going as before to the captains of the forts.[5] This change did not continue for many years. In the session
- ↑ Governor and Council of Virginia to Privy Council, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. X, No. 5; McDonald Papers, vol. II, p. 233, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Report of Sub-Committee for Foreign Plantations, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. IX, No. 122; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1638, p. 29, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 247.
- ↑ Ibid., pp. 301, 534.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 423.
