Long and elaborate acts were passed for amending the staple of
tobacco. The tending of seconds was prohibited; all tobacco exported to
be inspected; to be exported from warehouses only; the planter to
receive from the inspectors a promissory note specifying the quantity of
tobacco deposited, and the quality, whether sweet-scented or Oronoko,
stemmed or leaf; these tobacco-notes were made current within the county
or other adjacent county. This salutary measure of making tobacco the
basis of a currency was devised by Governor Spotswood.[418:A]
Tobacco-notes were still in use in Virginia at the beginning of the
present century. In the year 1730 Prince William County was established.

Sir William Berkley (1671) "thanked God that there were no free schools
nor printing in Virginia." In 1682 John Buckner was called before the
Lord Culpepper and his council for printing the laws of 1680 without
his excellency's license, and he and the printer ordered to enter into
bond in one hundred pounds, not to print anything thereafter, until his
majesty's pleasure should be known.[419:A] The earliest surviving
evidence of printing done in Virginia is the edition of "The Revised
Laws," published in 1733. In 1719 two newspapers were issued at Boston;
in 1725 one at New York, and in the following year a printing-press was
introduced into Maryland. One had been established at Cambridge, in
Massachusetts, before 1647. A printing-press was first established in
South Carolina, and a newspaper published in 1734. The first Virginia
newspaper, "The Virginia Gazette," appeared at Williamsburg, in August,
1736, published by William Parks, weekly, at fifteen shillings per
annum. It was a small sheet, on dingy paper, but well printed. It was in
the interest of the government, and for a long time the only journal of
the colony. Parks printed "Stith's History of Virginia" and "The Laws of
Virginia."

In 1732, in accordance with royal instructions, a duty was laid of five
per centum on the purchase-money of slaves, to be paid by the purchaser.
The difference between sterling money and the ordinary currency was
twenty per centum. Stealing of slaves was made felony, without benefit
of clergy.

The Nottoway Indians (1734) still possessed a large tract of land on the
river of that name, in Isle of Wight County. They were much reduced by
wars and disease, and were allowed to sell part of their lands for their
better support. The tributary Indians now speak