Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/553

 houses, whether in a square or line, was left to be decided by the Governor.

Although the Colony had prospered in a fair measure for a period of fifty years without having a large settlement at Jamestown, nevertheless, it had now been determined in earnest to establish one there. It was thought advisable to proceed with great dispatch. To accomplish this, each of the seventeen counties into which Virginia was divided at this time, was ordered to build a house at Jamestown at its own expense. The authority was conferred on all to impress into service the mechanics needed for the work, such as bricklayers, carpenters, sawyers, and other tradesmen. The strictest regulations were laid down to prevent every kind of exaction. The bricks were to be manufactured in the most careful manner and were in size to represent statute measure; the price was not to exceed one hundred and fifty pounds of tobacco for every one thousand. In addition to receiving his food without charge, the ordinary laborer engaged in erecting a house was to be paid at the rate of two thousand pounds of tobacco a year. The brickmakers and bricklayers were to be remunerated according to the number of bricks moulded and laid, while the wages of each carpenter were not to exceed thirty pounds of tobacco a day. Each sawyer was to receive half a pound of tobacco for every foot of plank and timber for joices which he fashioned into shape. The workmen furnished by each county were ordered to report themselves twenty days after the Governor had forwarded to the commissioners of the county the notice to send them. The keepers of the taverns at Jamestown were required to supply the ordinary laborer with food at the rate of one thousand pounds of tobacco a year, and the most skilled workmen at the rate of fifteen hundred.

There was not a landowner in the Colony upon whom