Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/362

 thirty-two pounds for every horse, mare, or gelding; four pounds for every breeding sheep; and two pounds for every breeding goat. This tax, as long as it remained in force, must have had a discouraging influence on the live stock interests of the Colony; in 1648, it was repealed, on the ground that it had been created only to raise funds for carrying on the war with the Indians then in progress, an emergency which had now passed.

In 1649, there were about fifteen thousand people in Virginia independently of the slaves, who were three hundred in number.