collect the quit-rents, which ought properly to have been paid in coin, should accept tobacco in its stead, in order to avoid the deadlock which would result from demanding rents in the metals, at a time when the latter were not to be found in the Colony.[1]
When Sir George Yeardley in 1628 came to draw up his will, he inserted among its provisions, strict directions that the portion of his estate in Virginia, including lands, cattle, and servants, should be sold for tobacco, and that this should be transported to England and there disposed of at the highest price. These instructions show how impossible it was, a generation after the foundation of the Colony, to convert an estate into coin or even bills of exchange for transmission to the mother country, although this method, of course, would have been far preferable to one which involved the shipment of an agricultural product with the heavy freight charges attendant.[2] For a number of years previous to 1632, it seems to have been the habit to value all articles in tobacco, an indication not only of the supreme importance of the commodity in the financial system of the Colony, but also of the comparative stability of its price in the market. As soon as this price began to fluctuate with more or less suddenness, it became highly advisable to use the figures of English currency in all ordinary appraisements; it is not, therefore, surprising to find that in 1632 an Act of Assembly was passed requiring that in calculating the amount of estates of deceased persons, coin alone should be used as the expression of value.[3] It is probable that this regulation
- ↑ Lawes of Assembly, 1619, Colonial Records of Virginia, State Senate Doct., Extra, 1874, p. 16.
- ↑ Will of Sir George Yeardley, New England Historical and Genealogical Register, January, 1884, p. 69. See General Court Orders, Feb. 4, 1627, Robinson Transcripts, p. 71.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 170.
