Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/427

 influence exercised upon the material prosperity of all classes in the Colony by the enforced use of its staple crop as a substitute for coin. That commodity was not only an agricultural product, but also a currency in which every form of payment was made, public or private. It was not unnatural that many persons who had been trained in the mechanical arts should have preferred to obtain tobacco, not by doing mechanical work, but by tilling the ground, an impulse which was encouraged by the abundance of lands still in a condition of the highest fertility.

In the early history of Virginia, an attempt was made to establish a general tariff of rates, in conformity with which the free mechanics were to receive remuneration for their labor. Thus it was provided by the first Assembly, which met in 1619, that a person engaged in a mechanical pursuit should be paid according to the quality of his trade, and if the amount of his wages was not prescribed by the terms of a contract, its determination was to be left to the officers of the district in which the work was performed. In 1623, the rewards of mechanics varied from three to four pounds of tobacco a day in addition to an allowance of food. This was extraordinary, as each pound of merchantable tobacco at this time was equal in value to two and a half and even to three shillings. It is not surprising that George Sandys should have declared that the compulsory rates of wages in Virginia during the period of his treasurership imposed a burden almost intolerable. Twenty years subsequent to this utterance, the scale of the remuneration received by handicraftsmen employed in the erection of Forts Charles