Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/632

 killing of cattle capital offences, but allowing the persons guilty of these crimes the alternative of being shipped to the English Plantations. Before the operation of this statute could have increased the number of convicts among the servants of Virginia, a royal order, confirming the previous order of the General Court at Jamestown, announced that the importation of Newgate criminals was to cease, and that this rule was to apply to all the Colonies. The order was read in the General Court on April 6th, 1671, and in pursuance of its commands, that body proclaimed that shipmasters and merchants should not be permitted to land servants from their vessels while riding in the waters of Virginia, until the collectors had made inquiry and found that these persons had not been guilty of violating the royal instructions. Mr. Hugh Nevitt, a merchant, disregarded these instructions by introducing ten &#8220;jail-birds,&#8221; and was at once called to account for his action. An order of court was passed that he should not be suffered to leave Jamestown until he had offered good security for the removal of the whole number of the criminals from the Colony before the end of two months. The planters who had purchased them were commanded to deliver them up, and Nevitt was required to return in its original form the consideration which he had received for his human merchandise. Captains Bristow and Walker became securities for his performance of the order of court to send out the &#8220;jail-birds,&#8221; and they were compelled to bind themselves in the enormous amount of one million pounds of tobacco, an unmistakable indication of the earnest spirit in which that order had been passed. The motive of the General Court was not one merely of apprehension lest the dangerous conspiracy of 1663 might be repeated, but a