by conferring upon the commissioners of the different counties the authority to erect houses in which the children of indigent parents were to be taught the art of spinning and weaving as well as other trades, these children to be selected at the discretion of the commissioners.[1]
In 1671, the statute prohibiting the exportation of wool, among other articles, was repealed on the ground that the handicraftsmen whose trades it was designed to aid had failed to take advantage of it.[2] In 1682, it was reënacted. Wool and woolfels and the other articles named, the statute declared, were essential to the welfare of the people of the Colony, as furnishing necessary materials for use, and also as offering subsistence to many persons because they would find occupation in working them up. The penalty for exporting wool and woolfels was now placed at forty pounds of tobacco for every pound of these materials carried out of the country. The owner of the ship transporting it forfeited his interest in the vessel if aware of its presence on board, while the master and seamen were deprived of their goods and chattels for their participation in the act, besides being made subject to imprisonment for three months. If any person who had knowledge of the fact that a certain quantity of wool and woolfels were to be exported seized upon it, he was entitled to one-half of it as a reward for furnishing information as to its prospective illegal removal. The collectors were instructed to announce to every shipmaster arriving, the passage of this statute, and to insert in the entry bond of each one, a condition that he should observe its provisions.[3] With a view of encouraging the manufacture of the wool thus kept in Virginia, a second law was passed in 1682, which, as we have seen, was also applicable to linen, prescribing that six pounds of tobacco should be paid to every person who
