Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/480

 meal, flour; meat, and vegetables was also lessened to that extent. A ship in which a cargo of loose tobacco was stored was more heavily laden than if it had only hogsheads on board, because the bundles of leaves could be deposited in the cantlings and hollows, where it was impossible to place even casks of the smallest size. A vessel that would hold five hundred hogsheads could transport sixty thousand pounds in bulk.

The damage inflicted upon the planter was more serious than the injury which fell upon the colonial government in these shipments of the leaf in its loose state. The effect of the smaller expense of transportation in bulk was to enable the foreign importer to dispose of it at a lower rate than the same commodity that had come to him in hogsheads, and this necessarily brought the latter down in spite of the heavier charges which it had been required to bear. Loose tobacco did not have to undergo the delay entailed by the process of assorting and packing, and it, therefore, reached England at an earlier date and forestalled the arrival of the leaf in cask, which suffered from the largeness of the supply already on hand. The English market for tobacco in hogsheads was also injured by the fact that the commodity in its loose state could be hawked about the streets in small quantities and sold very cheaply, even when it had borne all the charges in the form of freight and custom.

The damage inflicted upon their interests by the shipments in bulk had been long recognized by the planters, and many had on a number of occasions protested against it. In 1687, for instance, James the Second was earnestly petitioned to prohibit its continuance and he consented,