England granted to the owners of vessels the right to dispose of their labor when the Colony was reached, in return for having furnished them transportation, there was an inclination on the part of these owners to raise the rate extremely high in order to lengthen the terms of service and thus increase the profit of the voyage. So exorbitant were the charges in instances of this kind, amounting not infrequently to four or five times the ordinary fee of the passage, that it became a cause of general complaint, which apparently remained without remedy.[1]
In the session of 1638-39, the General Assembly adopted the regulation that a tax of six pence per capita should be levied on passengers arriving at Point Comfort, and towards the close of the century this amount was increased to fifteen shillings in the case of servants of alien birth.[2] It is an interesting and significant fact that the heavy penalties imposed for forestalling the markets of the Colony in regard to so many articles of merchandise, such, for instance, as liquors, soaps, candles, sugar, fruits, spices, woollen and linen goods, were held not to apply to servants, the persons who had bought them from the merchants being left at liberty to dispose of them in exchange for tobacco at the highest figures they could secure.[3] This exception was allowed on the ground that the seasoning of laborers exposed their first owners to serious charges, and hazards which ought to be considered in their subsequent sale. The statute of 1642, however, which required that the masters of ships should not sell any goods on board until their vessels had arrived at Jamestown, at
