Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/374

 months; for the third offence, exposure in the pillory, forfeiture of goods and imprisonment for such a length of time as the Governor should decide to be proper. The laws against forestalling between 1630 and 1640 were but a reflection of the same class of enactments in operation in England. As early as the session of 1631-32, the House of Burgesses ordered that the English statutes hearing on this point should be proclaimed and executed in Virginia. There was, however, far greater need of such laws there than in the mother country, the very fountain of the manufactured supplies which were so essential to the welfare of the population of the Colony. The volume of goods imported by the English merchants could rarely in any one year have been much in excess of the requirements of the planters. A successful attempt to advance the rates of these goods by obtaining a partial monopoly in them, was an injury to the general community even in the years in which tobacco commanded the most remunerative prices. Whenever the crop was cut short, or the rates at which the planters were compelled to sell were too low to ensure a profit, the hardships resulting from engrossing and forestalling under the most favorable circumstances were greatly increased.

It was not, however, to the interest of the merchant that the laws against engrossing and forestalling should be strictly enforced. His object was to sell the goods which he had on board of his ship or which he had transferred to land under care of himself or factor, to the first person who offered tobacco of fine quality for them, and to him it was a matter of indifference at what prices the buyer subsequently disposed of them among the inhabitants of the Colony. The need of the people for merchandise might have been great enough to constrain them to