After the revocation of the charter, the master or factor in charge of a cargo, on reaching Jamestown, was required to wait until ten days had passed before he should attempt to dispose of the goods in his care, the object of this provision being that the colonists should have full opportunity to learn of the arrival of the vessel and time to make a journey to Jamestown to purchase such parts of its contents as they wanted.[1] By the Act of 1633, all the commodities landed at that place to be bartered for tobacco had to pass through the hands of the storekeeper who had charge of the general warehouse at that point, a certain percentage being granted him in the exchange.[2]
The most careful regulations were adopted to prevent the forestallment and engrossment of merchandise after it had been landed and offered for sale. This was one reason, as has been shown, for the passage of the series of Acts requiring all ships that arrived in the Colony to keep their cargoes intact until Jamestown had been reached. One of the first measures of the Company after the election of Southampton to the treasurership was to instruct the authorities in Virginia to exercise unceasing vigilance in suppressing every attempt to buy up the great bulk of commodities with a view to raising prices to an exorbitant extent by anticipating the market.[3] In a dispatch to the Governor and Council, forwarded in the Warwick in 1621, the effort to monopolize the principal articles imported during the previous year, as a part of the supplies of the Magazine, was condemned with great severity on the ground that it not only restricted the profits of the joint stock by means of which these supplies
