Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/235

 and double the rates permitted in 1657. The price laid down for French wines was twenty pounds of tobacco a quart and eighty pounds a gallon, representing, when compared with previous charges, the same ratio of increase. A rate for beer was now quoted for the first time since 1639, when it was the only liquor that could be legally disposed of by retail. In that year, it was valued at less than six pounds of tobacco. It was now valued at twenty.

The permission to sell at these high figures, which, as we have seen, was granted to the keepers of ordinaries at Jamestown, only had their justification in circumstances wholly local in character and entirely confined to one occasion. The Assembly was compelled to admit that the stringent laws adopted to restrain exorbitant charges for liquors in the ordinaries had failed of their purpose; this was largely on account of the extreme fluctuation in the prices of tobacco, which led to the establishment of a regulation apparently well adapted to protect the interests of the retailer of liquor, as well as those of the purchaser: the judge of each county court was authorized to apply from time to time a sliding scale to the rates, as the value of tobacco rose or fell. In order to ensure its strict observance, every ordinary keeper was compelled to give bond, and had also to obtain a special license, paying three hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco to the Governor for it.

After 1663, all retail sellers of liquors were required to use only the English sealed measures of pints, quarts, or gallons. Spirits imported in bottles were allowed to be disposed of without breaking the seal. It is an indication of the heavy exactions to which buyers had been exposed under the lax system previously prevalent, that