Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/329

There are evidences that the commercial intercourse between Virginia and New England began at an early date. In 1640, the General Court sitting at New Haven laid clown the scale of prices to be used in the purchase of commodities from the Southern Colony.^[1] The trade with this community increased in volume with the progress of time. In 1645, a suit was brought in New Haven by Richard Cateliman, as attorney for Florentine Payne of Virginia, against Thomas Hart, who was largely indebted to Payne in their business transactions in that Colony.^[2] John Thompson, at a subsequent date, was engaged in transporting supplies to the plantations on the James and York, and Mr. Evance was also the owner of a vessel employed in the same trade. In 1655, complaint was entered in the court at New Haven, that the badness of the biscuit and flour made at Milford had brought discredit in the Southern Colony upon all goods imported from the north.^[3]

John Treworgie and Nicholas Shiplagh of New England, in 1647, appointed Isaac Allerton, Edward Gibbons, and John Richards their agents, to recover the amount in which George Ludlow of York was indebted to them in running accounts.^[4] During the previous year, Gibbons had dispatched a ship to Virginia with a cargo of goods, which had barely escaped being wrecked.^[5] In 1648, the dealings of Roger Fletcher of Boston with the Colony were so large that he appointed Thomas Bridge to act as his attorneys Three years subsequent to this, there were

1. New Haven Colonial Records, vol. 1638-1649, p. 35.
2. Ibid., p. 170.
3. Ibid., vol. 1653-1665, pp. 142, 317; vol. 1638-1649, p. 291.
4. Records of York County, vol. 1638-1648, p. 423, Va. State Library. Letter of Governor Winthrop, October, 1646, Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, p. 172, note.
5. Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1646;-1651, f. p. 61. See also New England Historical and Genealogical Register for April, 1893, p. 201. A few years later the widow of Cornelius Lloyd of Lower Norfolk County appointed Nicholas Hart of New England her attorney, presumably to collect what was due the estate of her late husband in those parts. Records of Lower Norfolk County, original vol. 1651-1656, f. p. 109. He may, however, have been expected to act only in Virginia. See original vol. 1656-1666, p. 338.