In order to avoid the complications certain to arise in case the latter died without any one having the legal right to represent the interests of his principal, a second person was authorized on the same occasion to take the place of the original agent in this emergency.[1] A failure to provide against such a contingency was frequently the cause of serious loss. In 1638, John Woodcock, an English merchant who traded with the planters, was compelled by the death of his factor in Virginia and his consequent inability to collect debts from the persons into whose hands his goods had been dispersed, to make application to the Privy Council for assistance in his predicament; to this application, it ready response was given, and instructions were sent to the Governor and Council to aid Woodcock in securing what was due him.
A second instance may be given. In 1672, one of the factors of George Lee, an English merchant, died in Virginia indebted to his principal in a balance of seven hundred pounds sterling. His property passed into the hands of his mother, who appointed an attorney to take charge of it. The latter proceeded immediately to convert the whole estate into tobacco, which he was about to ship to his own consignee in England, when the General Court interposed with an order requiring him to transfer the entire quantity to a third person in the mother country, until the justice of the claim of Lee on the property of his deceased agent had been decided. To facilitate this, all the books of the factor containing his accounts with his principal were directed to be sent to England.[2]
