Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/359

 perils to which a merchantman was exposed both on the inward and outward voyage, declared that a person engaged in the Virginian trade might be worth one thousand pounds sterling to-day and to-morrow lose the last groat. The policies ordinarily secured upon a cargo by its owner did not extend to the acts of public enemies. The insurance was five guineas upon every one hundred guineas&#8217; worth of goods.

In the instances in which the English merchant owned the ship transporting his commodities to the Colony, the most serious charge which he had to meet was the wages of his captain and seamen, an item of importance on account of the length of the voyage, since the vessel not infrequently took a circuitous route, touching first at the Canaries, then at Barbadoes, and finally reaching an anchorage in the waters of one of the Virginian rivers. The remuneration of the shipmaster was probably about nine pounds sterling a month; that of a sailor in 1668 was thirty shillings for the same length of time. There is an instance recorded in Lower Norfolk in 1680 in which a common mariner was paid only eight shillings. Fifteen years later, there was a second instance in the same county,