t
planters whose estates were usually self-sufficient and concentrating
on trade with England. The natural bounty of the Tidewater region thus
actually deterred the development of Virginia along the lines of New
England with its urban centers:

Cohabitation would not only employ thousands of people ... others
would be employed in hunting, fishing, and fowling, and the more
diligently if assured of a public market....

So also our fishing would be advanced and improved highly by
encouraging many poor men to follow that calling, and sundry sorts
which are now slighted would be fit for a town market, as sturgeon,
thornback, and catfish. Our vast plenty of oysters would make a
beneficial trade, both with the town and foreign traders, believing
we have the best oysters for pickling and transportation if
carefully and skillfully managed.

By 1705 the seat of government had been transferred to nearby
Williamsburg. The need of establishing towns as foci for the developing
countryside had been felt and now the legislators turned their
attention to promoting the fish markets therein, followed by some
essential protection of the rights of fishermen and others. Hening's
_Statutes_ gives the details:

October, 1705. For the encouragement and bettering of the markets
in the said town, Be it enacted, That no dead provision, either of
flesh or fish shall be sold within five miles of any of the ports
or towns appointed by this act, on the same side the great river
the town shall stand upon, but within the limits of the town, on
pain of forfeiture and loss of all such provision by the purchases,
and the purchase money of such provision sold by the vendor,
cognizable by any justice of the county....

Be it further enacted and declared, That if any person or persons
shall at any time hereafter shoot, hunt or range upon the lands and
tenements, or fish or fowl in any creeks or waters included within
the lands of any other person or persons without license for the
same, first obtained of the owner and proprietor thereof, every
such person so shooting, hunting, fishing, fowling, or ranging,
shall forfeit and pay for every such offence, the sum of five
hundred pounds of tobacco....

Be it further enacted, That if any person shall set, or cause to be
set, a weir in any river or creek, such person shall cause the
stayes the