Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/562

 towns, under the pain of confiscation if the regulation was violated. Cattle and provisions were excepted from the operation of this rule. The cost of hiring a sloop, the only means of transporting the tobacco from the plantations, was fixed at twenty pounds of that commodity for each hogshead, provided the distance to be traversed did not exceed thirty miles; if it was greater than this, the charge was to be forty pounds, and should the owner of the sloop demand more, he was to be punished by the forfeiture of one hundred pounds for each hogshead conveyed by him at the illegal rate. The expense of storage in a warehouse was to be the same for a single day and a single month, namely, ten pounds of tobacco a hogshead. If the period ran beyond a month, the additional charge for each month was fixed at six pounds. In order to facilitate the transportation of the tobacco belonging to persons whose plantations were situated at a distance from the nearest site chosen for a town, these persons were permitted to appropriate land at the most convenient point for the dispatch of vessels, on which a rolling-house was to be erected to furnish accommodation for all the producers in their neighborhood. When the planter had prepared his crop for shipment, he could convey his hogsheads to this house for safe-keeping until a sloop or shallop arrived to transport them to the nearest port of entry. If he had a sloop or shallop of his own, he could either carry his tobacco to the rolling-house by water or directly to the legal port and there have it deposited in the public warehouse. The rolling-house was expected to be a shelter not only for the tobacco in the course of transportation to the port of entry, but also for the goods which had been unloaded at the latter place and had afterwards been brought to the rolling-house for distribution among the planters residing in the neighborhood.