Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/307

 merchant was afterwards accused by the faction hostile to the Southampton Administration of selling its contents at excessive rates, being able to do so on account of the great demand for such articles. The charge was fully refuted by Mr. Caswell. In a speech delivered at a General Court, he stated that the meal, which constituted a very important part of the supplies, and in connection with which it was asserted extortion had been exercised, had been purchased in England at nine shillings a bushel, an amount swelled to thirteen shillings by the charges for custom and freight. In England, a hogshead of meal measuring nine bushels was valued in the market at five pounds and seventeen shillings. In Virginia, at this time, the same quantity was sold for eighty pounds of tobacco, a commodity commanding in England eighteen pence a pound, in consequence of which the margin of profit upon each bushel sank to six pence after the payment of all charges and after allowance for shrinkage.

There were other magazine ships dispatched to Virginia in 1623, in addition to the Hopewell, which transported the supplies secured by Mr. Caswell. The magazine sent in the Truelove was valued at five hundred and thirty-six pounds sterling. The master of the ship invested sixty pounds in its cargo, while Mr. Dodson, a prominent member of the Company, subscribed to an interest in it, which would now be represented by two thousand dollars. This last subscription reveals the liberal spirit shown at this crisis in the history of the Colony, for Mr. Dodson had already been compelled by the order in Council to contribute to the general fund for the use of the people