Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/554

 the enforcement of this law would not impose a more or less onerous burden. Thus it directed that a levy of thirty pounds of tobacco a head should be raised by the counties, and that each county should use ten thousand pounds of the amount thus collected, in paying for the construction of the house which it was required to build at Jamestown, in case the structure was completed in the course of two years after the original subscription. Ten thousand pounds of tobacco were also granted to every person who finished, at that place, a dwelling of the prescribed size before the termination of the same time. The surplusage of the general levy was to be distributed by the Governor and Council among those who had undertaken to erect houses, in the order of time in which these houses were completed. If any one who had bound himself to build at Jamestown in accord with the provisions of the law, should fail to carry out his agreement within the period allowed, he exposed himself to a fine of fifteen hundred pounds of tobacco. In order to induce persons to erect brick houses on the lots assigned them, they were granted a fee simple title to ground adjacent to their property sufficient in extent to afford room for a store.

Having taken measures which seemed adapted to ensure the erection of a large number of houses and stores, the General Assembly, recognizing that unless a steady volume of trade could be secured for the inhabitants, the corporation would have no reason for existence, established the regulation that from the year Jamestown was completed, the tobacco crops of James City, Charles City, and Surry should be transported thither in sloops and shallops, and there put on board ships. If a planter refused to conform to this regulation, he was to be mulcted one thousand pounds of tobacco. The remuneration of each person who should convey the tobacco of others in his sloop or