There is reason to think that the trade with Virginia was not steadily lucrative to an uncommon degree after all the necessary charges had been met, although the nominal margin of gain appeared to be very large. This margin is easily discovered through the whole extent of the century. In the winter of 1623, which, as has been seen, was one of such extraordinary want as to raise the prices of all articles of food to a point hitherto unknown. George Harrison wrote to his brother in England that if he would secure a vessel and send her to Virginia with a cargo of wine, butter, cheese, sugar, and other provisions, he could easily obtain a profit of two hundred pounds sterling at the least, about five thousand dollars in our modern currency. The amount required for the purchase of such a cargo in England rendered this sum equivalent to a gain of not less than fifty per cent, perhaps even to a gain of a hundred.[1] In 1626, the margin, after paying three shillings a pound for tobacco, was so small, that the English merchants declared that there was no inducement to exchange their goods for that commodity. The regulation fixing this as the price was revoked, and the English traders permitted to obtain, for their goods, tobacco at the lowest rates at which they could purchase it, in order to ensure some profit after the payment of all expenses.[2] This profit is stated to have ranged in 1638 from six to ten pence on each pound of that product disposed of at wholesale.[3] About
- ↑ George Harrison to his Brother, British State Papers, Colonial, No. 17, vol. II; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1623, p. 78, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Instructions to Governor Yeardley, 1626, British State Papers, Colonial; Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. II, p. 394. In the Instructions to Berkeley, 1641, there was the following clause: that the merchant be not constrained to take tobacco at any price in exchange for his wares, but that it be lawful for him to make his own bargain for his goods.” British State Papers, Colonial; McDonald Papers, vol. I, p. 358, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Remonstrance of Planters, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. IX, No. 100; Winder Papers, vol. I, p. 124, Va. State Library.
