TOBACCO LAWS OF THE OLD DOMINION to any other." Also, "That the commander shall appoint persons to count the number of plants before the roth day of July, and say in his conscience the just and true number of them, and if the number be found to exceed the proportion of 2000 per poll, then the commander is to present it to the next monthlie cort, and the commissioners thereof shall give present order to have the whole crop of tobaccoe cut down under payne of imprisonment and censure of the govonor and counsell and grand assembly yff they neglect the execution thereof. And upon neglect of the commander he shall be censured in like manner." Act XXII provides, "That no person shall tend or cause to be tended above 14 leaves, nor gather or cause to be gathered above 9 leaves upon a plant of tobacco; and the several commanders shall hereby have power to examine the truth thereof, and if any offend, to punish the servants by whippinge, and bind over the maysters unto the next quarter cort at James Citty to be censured by the govonor and counsell." For the better maintaining the quality of tobacco, it was later enacted, "That whereas it has been taken into serious consideration and debate for the bettering our — indeed — only commoditie tobacco, for the benefit both of the planter and marchant; both equally complaining of its low and con temptible rate, and noe expedient found butt lessening the quantity and mending the quality — finding all other stints incon sistent with the good of this colony. . . . Doe therefore hereby enact that what per son or persons soever shall after publication of this act, tend, suffer, or cause to be tended any tobacco commonly called "sec onds" and "slips," shall for soe doing pay 2000 pounds of tobacco, one half to the informer, and the other half to the militia to be disposed of for amunition for that county where the offense shall be com mitted." All tobacco, after gathering and curing, was required to be deposited in stores or
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warehouses under government supervision, there to be "viewed, tried, and inspected" by sworn officials; and woe to the planter who undertook to deposit any "ill con ditioned" leaves, for it was ordered the same were "Instantly to be burnt and the planters thereof disabled from plantinge any more of the commoditie of tobacco." . . . "And no person may neglect, withhold or deteyne any tobaccoes from bringinge the same to the said stores uppon penaltie of confiscation of soe much as shall be kept back on the last day of December; to which pur pose alsoe every such person or persons shall be sworne . . . that he or they have kept back no tobacco except such as is reserved for his or their own spendage to use in his familie . ' ' Similar requirements and penalties applied to the established prices and weights in all tobacco transactions. It would seem from these laws that to bacco was firmly intrenched in its unique position. Nevertheless it had its vicissi tudes, and came near being dethroned from its place of exaltation as the medium of exchange, by some revolutionary, modern izing iconoclasts and reformers, who domi nated the Assembly of 1634, which Assembly, by Act IV, entitled "An act for all Con tracts, Bargains, Pleas, and Judgments to. be paid in money and not in tobacco," did legally if not actually demonetize tobacco. It provided "That whereas it hath been the usual custom of marchants and others deal ing intermutually in this colony to make all bargaines, contracts, and to keep all ac counts in tobacco and not in money, con trary to the custome in England and other places within the King's dominion, which ttying hath bread many inconveniencys in trade, ... it is thought fitt by the Govonor and Counsell and Burgesses of the Grand Assembly; That all accounts and contracts be usually made in money and not in to bacco; and further that all Judgments, De crees and Acts, made and ordered in any of the Corts within this colony, . . . shall be sett down in English money according to
