Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/546

 their certificates, which placed the purchasers in the position of the shipmasters with reference to the patents to be sued out. The acquisition of head rights under these circumstances by masters of vessels having been attended with no pecuniary cost and with little personal inconvenience, it followed that they were prepared to dispose of their certificates for a smaller amount of tobacco than was usual. In this way, they were able to make a considerable addition to their cargoes, which, from the fact that no outlay was entailed in securing it, augmented to that extent the clear profit of the voyage. As long as the violation of the law was either consciously or unwittingly overlooked by the colonial authorities, there was no reason in the opinion of a shipmaster guilty of this fraud why he should be disturbed in conscience. To guard, however, against the chance of his scheme of acquiring head rights on the strength of having transported to Virginia his own sailors for the third or even for the fourth time, being upset by the honesty of the officials before whom the oath was taken, he was generally too shrewd to select the same county in the Colony twice in succession as the scene of his imposition upon the welfare of the community.

As might have been confidently expected, the evil example of an unscrupulous shipmaster was imitated by the sailors under him. It would have been unnatural for the underling to have observed the profit which his superior was reaping by his facility in false swearing without seeking to secure some advantage for himself by the same means. The master of a vessel having obtained a certain number of certificates of head rights, by taking an oath that he had brought to Virginia his own sailors, whom he doubtless described in very indefinite terms, the