ated for their labor. Title in fee simple to a lot was to be given, without charge, to every one who erected a house in the town, and finally, trade was to be secured for it by staking it the only port on the James above Mulberry Island where a cargo could be legally loaded and unloaded. Necessarily, if this regulation was strictly enforced, Jamestown would become the residence of all the principal merchants in that part of the Colony. What was the practical result of all these carefully considered provisions? Three years after their adoption, Secretary Ludwell, writing to Secretary Bennett in England, stated that enough of the proposed town had been built to accommodate the officers employed in the civil administration of Virginia,[1] but this, it may be inferred from a remark contained in a letter from Morryson to Lord Clarendon, amounted only to the construction of four or five houses. He declared that the erection of this scanty number of buildings had entailed the loss of hundreds of people, apprehension of impressment having driven many mechanics from the Colony.[2]
In 1670, Jamestown consisted of only twelve or fourteen families, who obtained a living chiefly by keeping houses of entertainment.[3] This would signify a population of about seventy-five. There were twelve new brick houses and a number of framed houses with brick chimneys attached, the value of the whole number, it was
- ↑ British State Papers, Colonial Papers, April 10, 1665; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1665, p. 72, Va. State Library.
- ↑ This letter is given in Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, p. 205. The following is taken from the Grievances of Surry County, drawn up in response to the special request of the English commissioners sent to inquire into the causes of Bacon’s Insurrection: “That great quantityes of tobacco were levied upon ye pore inhabitants of this Collony for the building of houses att James Citty, which were not inhabitable by reason they were not finished.” British State Papers, Colonial, Virginia, no. 62; Winder Papers, vol. II, p. 160, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Bacon’s Proceedings, p. 25, Force’s Historical Tracts, vol. I.
