Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/96

 in the invoices of supplies forwarded to their correspondents in England to be filled. The Royal African Company had its agencies in London, and to them the merchants transferred their orders for slaves. It not infrequently happened that a person residing in Virginia directed under his will that property which he owned in the mother country should be sold and the proceeds invested in negroes, a conversion which was doubtless carried out through the same corporation. Many of the slaves in the Colony were imported directly from the West Indies, there being an extensive trade between Virginia and those islands in grain. When Colonel William Byrd and other prominent planters were in need of negroes, they often forwarded orders to their merchants in Barbadoes to return so many along with the cargoes of rum, sugar, and molasses for which invoices were dispatched, the sex, age, and physical points of the slaves to be sent being as carefully specified as the quality and quantity of the articles for consumption. Merchants of this island were also personally engaged in transporting negroes to Virginia with a view to their sale to casual purchasers.

Instructions were given to Lord Howard, in 1687, to punish with the utmost severity all persons who were discovered to be engaged in importing negroes in violation of the exclusive rights of the Royal African Company. Acting upon the letter and the spirit of these instructions, Howard issued orders to Captain Perry of the guard-ship then cruising in Virginian waters, to bar the entrance of