legal ports.[1] The fee for entering a vessel in one of these ports was the same as that for clearing, namely, fifteen shillings, if the vessel was twenty tons or less in burden, and thirty if it exceeded that number; this fee included the charge not only for making entry, but also for issuing a license to trade, and for taking the bonds required of all the shipmasters at this time.[2]
In 1671, Sir William Berkeley affirmed, in response to an inquiry made by the Commissioners for Foreign Plantations, that at this time no duty was imposed upon any article imported into the Colony.[3] This had not always been the case. Ten years previously, in consequence of the numerous diseases which, it was supposed, were produced by the free use of liquors among the planters, a tax of six pence had been laid upon every gallon of rum brought into Virginia by a vessel not owned entirely by its citizens, and the same provision was adopted with reference to pavele sugar.[4] This duty was not to become operative until 1663, and in the following year it was abolished on the ground that it raised a serious obstruction in the way of the prosperity of the general trade of the Colony.[5] It was, however, at a later date reimposed on rum, and was subsequently extended to wine, brandy, and other spirits. At first the amount was three pence a gallon, but this was increased in 1691 by a penny in the case of all liquors imported unless they came directly from England. No spirits were to be transferred from the ship to the shore until the duty had been paid, generally in the form of either money sterling or bills of exchange, to the officers appointed to receive it.[6]
