posed to exchange the wine for tobacco. Ignorant of the coast, the master of the vessel had passed the Capes and had been blown as far to the north as New England. This Colony was found to be no market for liquors, and in consequence he had sailed to New Amsterdam, hoping to find purchasers in the burghers of that town. It will be seen in this case, that although the master of the ship had not touched at an English port and obtained the letters of credit which were necessary, he nevertheless had made his way towards Virginia with the full purpose of selling his wines to the planters. He disposed of them to an Englishman whom he met in New Amsterdam, but agreed to transport them to the Colony and there to deliver them into the hands of a factor. A portion of the wines were discharged at Jamestown and a portion at Fleur de Hundred.[1]
In 1646, the Dutch West India Company gave formal permission to the citizens of Holland to send out their own ships to the different places, including Virginia, coming within the jurisdiction of that corporation.[2] The records of the county courts belonging to this part of the seventeenth century show the importance of the private trade which in consequence of this order sprang up between Holland and Virginia. In 1646, an attachment was issued in York against all the property of Captain Derrickson, a citizen of the Low Countries, which was to
- ↑ Devries’ Voyages from Holland to America, pp. 176, 181, 183.
- ↑ Documents Relating to Colonial History of New York, vol. I, p. 162. In this year (Jan. 23, 1646), parliament adopted a regulation which remitted customs on merchandise exported to Virginia, the Bermudas, and Barbadoes, the excise tax alone excepted. This privilege of exemption from payment of customs was, however, to be withdrawn from all the Plantations which continued to transport their tobacco to Europe in foreign (that is, continental) bottoms. Hazard, vol. I, pp. 634, 635.
