in which a seaman received by the month two pounds and four shillings; a chief mate, four pounds; a ship physician and carpenter, three pounds and ten shillings respectively. In 1695, a suit was brought in Lower Norfolk for work performed on the vessel of Captain Phillips during the course of twenty-five days and twenty-four nights, at the rate of eighteen pence for each twelve hours.[1]
If the merchant was not the owner of a vessel, his principal expense in transporting his goods to the Colony was the charge for freight. The rates did not vary materially in any part of the seventeenth century. During the administration of the Company, the cost was three pounds sterling a ton;[2] in one case recorded, of that period, a rate of two pounds sterling was offered and accepted.[3] In 1649, the freight charge upon each ton was three pounds, and at this figure it remained.[4]
The seamen were far from being a class of men on whom reliance could be placed. As soon as Virginia acquired a very considerable population, there was a strong disposition on the part of many of the persons thus employed to desert their vessels upon their arrival in the Colony, and by 1690, the evil had grown to such proportions that a special proclamation was issued by Governor Nicholson with a view to suppressing it. In order to increase the vigilance of shipmasters, a bond with a penalty of one thousand pounds sterling was required of them that they would return all the sailors to England whom they had brought into Virginia. They were commanded to act with the utmost fairness to their seamen, who, in
