with more ease and in greater abundance than Virginia in the seventeenth century. The Colony was very fortunate in the early years of its history in possessing a staple like tobacco, which, although it fluctuated in value and often sank in price below the cost of production, was nevertheless practically in constant demand in the foreign market. The Virginians, unlike the people of New England, were not compelled to seek purchasers for their main product; foreign shipmasters, with vessels loaded down with the greatest variety of merchandise, sailed directly up to the plantation wharves and there exchanged their goods for tobacco, or they placed these goods in the hands of factors who distributed them among the people in return for that commodity.
There have been few people enjoying a greater variety and abundance of food than the Virginians in the same age. The natural supplies which were not dependent upon their own production were to be found in greater profusion at that period than at any subsequent period, because the course of destruction had not been so prolonged. Beasts, birds, and fish were to be obtained in almost incredible quantities. There has never been a soil more admirably adapted to every species of vegetables than the soil of Virginia, even at the present day, after being under cultivation for nearly three hundred years. Although little attention was paid to fruits in the seventeenth century, there was nevertheless an abundant supply for use. The various cereals flourished also to an extraordinary degree.
An absence of great personalities was one of the most remarkable features of the history of Virginia in the seventeenth century after the dissolution of the Company. Nathaniel Bacon alone stands out upon that vast background in the proportions of an extraordinary man, but he was an Englishman and not a Virginian. It should be
