Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/373

 a forestaller according to the provisions of the laws of England. A few years later, the statute granting free trade to the colonists among themselves was re&euml;nacted, apparently indicating that the regulations for the suppression of engrossing and forestalling had again come into operation although at one time repealed. In the instructions for the guidance of Culpeper when he became Governor, he was ordered to put an end to every form of these evils practised in Virginia, but he denied very emphatically that they had any existence in his jurisdiction; notwithstanding this, the same command was repeated in the instructions given a few years later to Howard on his assuming the reins of administration. In the statement of grievances presented by the authorities of Northampton to the three commissioners from England who arrived after the collapse of the insurrection of 1676, it was declared that in this county, the engrossing of merchandise was carried on to such an extent as to prejudice the welfare of the community at large; an earnest petition was in consequence entered that no person should be suffered to purchase after the arrival of a ship a larger quantity of goods than he could pay for out of the proceeds of his annual crop.

The importance in public estimation of the regulations as to forestalling, which involved engrossing, was shown as long as these regulations remained in the statute book by the penalties prescribed for their violation. For the first offence, the punishment was imprisonment during two months without bail; for the second offence, six