Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/529

 obtained to the purchase of such commodities as he might designate, or he directed that his correspondent should hold it subject to future orders. The correspondent thus became his banker. It was also common for a planter, in forwarding his hogsheads of tobacco, to accompany them with bills equal in value to his interest in the cargo, drawn on the consignee, who was ordered to return in the form of goods the sum represented. If the price of the articles as a whole exceeded the aggregate amount of the bills, an abatement was made in the order, or the deficiency was covered by a second shipment of tobacco. The planter would not infrequently draw a bill of exchange on the merchant in England in whose hands a balance remained to his credit, for the purpose of settling a difference in his account with a second English merchant. It happened very often that the Virginian, instead of sending wheat or tobacco to the Northern Provinces, forwarded to a correspondent residing there, bills of exchange made payable in England or the West Indies, these bills having been delivered to him by merchants or planters in the Colony with whom he had had business transactions, or having been drawn by himself; they were honored by their exchange for what he needed, the correspondent relying upon their soundness when presented to the persons named as drawees. This was an ordinary illustration of the part which a bill of exchange played in the economic life of Virginia. It may have passed through a dozen hands in the Colony, like a piece of coin, before coming into the possession of the last holder. It then made the long voyage to New England. There it may have gone through many additional hands in succession before it was transmitted to England or the West Indies for acceptance by the merchant who was the drawee from the beginning.