Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/573

 established by the owners. In order to protect the interests of persons whose titles to property had been affected by the Act of Suspension and also to promote building, it was provided in 1699, eight years after the Act for Ports and six years after the Act of Suspension had been passed, that the trustees should confirm titles to lands bought previous to the latter Act or afterwards, just as if that measure had never been adopted. All vacancies in the board of feoffees were to be filled and all other powers conferred on these officers were to be exercised as if the Act for Ports had remained in force. So far, therefore, as this part of that law was involved, it continued to operate. In sustaining the right of the trustees to dispose of lots in spite of the suspension of the Act, it would appear that there was a desire among the members of the Assembly to encourage the growth of towns in the Colony as long as the movement did not affect the custom prevailing among the planters of exporting tobacco from their own wharves or receiving there all their imported merchandise. A still more striking evidence of the same desire was the grant of an extension of time to all who had ceased to build after the passage of the Act of Suspension. The Act for Ports was embodied in the code of 1705, the statement appearing in its preamble that the consent of the Government in England to its being put in operation had been obtained, but it was not long before it was again suspended through the influence of the English merchants trading in Virginia.

After the restoration of Jamestown, the settlement does not seem to have numbered more than twenty houses.