footing, for, in 1627, William Capps was sent to the Colony to try an experiment in the manufacture of bay salt in addition to carrying out the other objects of his mission to Virginia. If he began the experiment at all, he was soon interrupted by a contention in which he became involved, and which ended in his expulsion from the country.
The General Court at Jamestown, in 1630, passed an order, in conformity probably with instructions from England, that the manufacture of salt should be begun again.[1] This seems to have been done, for the Governor and Council shortly afterwards informed the English authorities that the colonists, who in the production of this article had hitherto employed artificial heat in the process of evaporation, would soon be using the heat of the still.[2] Harvey indulged in many hopeful expectations when writing upon the point at this time.[3] Thirty years after the close of his administration, the General Assembly rewarded Mr. Dawen, a citizen of Accomac, for the specimens of salt which he had produced by requiring the costs which he had incurred in visiting Jamestown, to be defrayed out of the general levy. He was also exempted from the levy of Accomac.[4] In 1660, the Assembly offered to grant ten thousand pounds of tobacco to Colonel Edmund Scarborough of Northampton if he should succeed in making eight hundred bushels.[5] In the following session, still more valuable encouragement was extended to him in consideration of his having erected works for that purpose. He was made the beneficiary of the whole amount of revenue collected in Northampton County in the settlement of the
