Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/545

 their own expense. In a patent granted to William Carter in 1636, the head rights were derived from his transportation in different years of two wives, then deceased, his living wife, and seven additional persons. Many head rights were obtained on the ground of a pretended blood-relationship to individuals now dead who had settled in Virginia.

The perversion of the head right from its original purposes grew more and more palpable with the progress of time, the certificate being granted without the slightest regard for the requirements of the law. One of the most unscrupulous instances of this perversion was where the master of a ship swore before the proper authorities that he had on a stated occasion brought into the Colony certain persons, who were in reality his seamen and passengers, for whose transportation he had never received the head rights to which he was entitled, and this claim was rarely thrown out, although the seamen were permanently attached to his vessel under articles of agreement which had been compelling and would still compel their services for a long period, while the passengers had borne every expense they incurred in making the voyage. In the succeeding year, perhaps, he would repeat the act, and upon the basis of the same sailors, together with a new batch of passengers, obtain, after taking the required oath, the same number of certificates to head rights as in the preceding year. In general, the custom prevailing among those having recourse to these unprincipled methods, who must, after all, have been comparatively few, was to sell the head rights thus gotten as soon as they