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of 1661-62, the castle duties were again made payable in powder and shot at the rate of half a pound of powder and three pounds of leaden shot for every ton represented in the burden of each ship arriving. It was permitted, however, to a master of a vessel to settle these duties in money sterling or in bills of exchange.[1] Many owners of ships engaged in the trade with Virginia complained in the following year that it was a great hardship to require them to pay twelve pence as a castle duty upon every ton of merchandise they imported, and they petitioned that instead they should be allowed to deliver half a pound of powder and three pounds of lead towards the defence of the plantations.[2] This request apparently failed to receive a favorable response. In 1680, the amount which it was optional for the shipowners to substitute for powder and shot was fixed at one shilling and three pence a ton.[3] A tonnage tax of fifteen pence was imposed upon every vessel arriving in the Colony towards the end of the century.[4] A present of liquor or provisions to the Governor by the shipmaster on anchoring, which in the beginning was a mere act of courtesy,[5] came in time to be a recognized charge, amounting to twenty shillings on each vessel above one hundred tons and thirty shillings if under. Culpeper remitted the gift in consideration of the payment of its value in tobacco or coin.[6]

  1. ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, pp. 177, 178.
  2. ↑ British State Papers, Colonial Papers, August, 1662; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1662, p. 26, Va. State Library.
  3. ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. II, p. 466.
  4. ↑ Palmer’s Calendar of Virginia State Papers, vol. I, p. 58. See Hening’s Statutes, vol. III, p. 345.
  5. ↑ In 1667, Berkeley called the attention of Colonel Scarborough to the fact that the ships arriving on the Eastern Shore had not paid “their yearly presentation of wine,” pretending that they had none. Records of Accomac County, original vol. 1664-1670, p. 63. Colonel Scarborough was the collector for the district.
  6. ↑ Beverley’s History of Virginia, p. 73.
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