Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/513

 higher than the intrinsic value of the copper entering into their composition. This fact was well known to the inhabitants of the Colony. As soon as the royal intention of exporting these coins to Virginia was announced, the House of Burgesses called the attention of the Governor and Council to the deficiency; they declared that mechanics would be unwilling to receive such money in remuneration for their labor, hired servants for their wages, and merchants for their debts. The Burgesses suggested that a petition should be presented to the King, begging him to import into Virginia five thousand pounds sterling annually to meet the constant need of coin, and that this money should be in the form of silver, with an allowance of ten per cent to such merchants as should bind themselves to satisfy the exchanges. A few years before, it had been calculated that the Colony would require annually as much as twenty thousand pounds sterling, but in this estimate, there were included not only the salaries of the public officers, but also the expenses to be incurred in destroying the forest, in stocking the new plantations with cattle, in raising fortifications at the mouths of the large rivers, in maintaining an army which should be kept in active service, and in extending the exploration of Virginia both by land and sea.

No fact illustrates in a more impressive manner, the absolute dearth at this time of the metals in the Colony than the Act of Assembly passed in January, 1611, which provided that no debts contracted in Virginia to be settled in money sterling should be pleadable in a court of law.