Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/345

 classes: first, those who resided in the mother country and disposed of goods to the colonists either directly upon the receipt of the tobacco in England, or who shipped goods to Virginia to be sold there by factors; secondly, those who lived either permanently or temporarily in the Colony and exchanged the commodities which they had ordered, for the products of the country, acting either in their own persons or through local representatives in their different mercantile transactions. To the first class belonged men of such standing as Micajah Perry, Thomas Lane, John Cary, John Cooper, George Richards, Peter Paggin, and John Bland. These English merchants in many instances had brothers or near relatives in Virginia who served as their agents. This was the case with Micajah Perry. It was also the case with John Bland. The English traders who resided in the Colony were men like Francis Lee, John Chew, Thomas Burbage, Robert Vaulx, and John Greene. In some instances they returned to England. This was the case with Robert Vaulx, John Greene, and Francis Lee. Participation in commercial exchange with the Virginians does not appear to have been the direct means of acquiring vast fortunes on the part of the merchants who resided in the mother country, although it is known that many persons engaged in this trade were men in affluent circumstances. Of the twenty-four who, towards the close of the seventeenth century, furnished the greater portion of the supplies of various kinds imported into the Colonies of Maryland and Virginia, not one bore a name