Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/239

 This system of establishing rates for foreign wines and spirits continued in operation during the remainder of the century and was embodied in the code of 1705; it was so eminently proper it seems surprising that it should not have been put in force from the beginning. Not only were the prices of foreign liquors when thus sold made to accord with the prices at which they were purchased before their importation into the Colony, but they were also, and this was a matter of still greater consequence, kept in touch with the fluctuating value of tobacco, in which form of currency the wines and spirits were rated. Promptness in raising or lowering the schedule as circumstances demanded was ensured by the frequent sessions of the justices. The records of the county courts subsequent to the passage of the Act of 1676-77 contain regular reports of the prices established by them. From one of these entries, it is learned that in 1688 the charge for brandy by the gallon was fixed at sixty pounds of tobacco; of rum and madeira, at fifty pounds; and of other island wines, at forty. This was in Henrico. In York County, at this time, the rates were calculated in coin. Canary was to be sold at eight shillings a gallon, sherry at six, Rhenish at four and six pence, claret and white wines at four, rum, madeira, and fayal wines at two shillings and six pence. In the schedule adopted by the justices of the same county six years later, the only change made was in the price of claret, this wine being reduced from four to three shillings and six pence, an indication that it was now imported in larger quantities.

It was required that the rates at which liquors were to be sold should be set in all the counties. Those which have