to the length of time a ship was compelled to remain in Virginia while occupied in collecting a cargo; it was asserted that these charges were double what they would have been if the vessel could have taken in its load of tobacco promptly instead of being compelled to pass from landing to landing, often very remote from each other, thus losing three or four months, during which it was necessary to provide the sailors with food and to remunerate them in wages. The amount of freight was not due until the cargo was delivered in England or wherever it was consigned.
A large portion of the tobacco exported from the Colony at this time was shipped in a loose mass. So strong was the temptation to transport it in this shape, that even after it had been placed on board in hogsheads, the hogs-heads were frequently broken open when the vessel had gotten under way, and the cargo rearranged.[1] One explanation of this course of action in many cases was that tobacco in bulk could be smuggled very easily into the kingdom, which was done by running the ships into the smaller ports where the revenue laws were laxly enforced, or into the mouths of creeks or lonely bays and estuaries. Having once found access to land, it was borne on pack-horses to the interior towns, where it was sold from door to door at much cheaper rates than the merchants in London could afford to retail it. Even when the leaf shipped in bulk was conveyed directly to ports where the custom laws were strictly carried out, an important part
- ↑ All the details that follow as to shipments in bulk, unless a different authority is given, are taken from William Byrd’s treatise on bulk tobacco. It is of interest to note that although Byrd condemned so severely exportation in bulk, nevertheless, on one occasion he sent out as much as fifty-one hogsheads in this shape. See his letter, June 4, 1691. Byrd’s treatise will be found in the History of the Dividing Line and Other Tracts, vol. II, p. 140.
