ly of sixty, the average price paid was 150 lbs. of
tobacco, this being the legal currency of the colony, and the standard
value by which all contracts, salaries, and prices were paid. In one
of the Companies letters dated in London this 12th of August, 1621, we
find this account of a portion of the _goods_ sent over in the ship
Marmaduke:--

"We send you in this ship one widdow and eleven maids for
wives for the people in Virginia; there hath been especiall
care had in the choise of them for their hath not any one of
them beene received but upon good comendations, as by a note
herewith sent you may perceive: we pray you all therefore in
generall to take them into your care, and most especially we
recommend them to you, Mr. Pountes, that at their first
landing they may be housed, lodged and provided for of diet
till they be marryed for such was the haste of sending them
away, as that straightned with time, we had no meanes to
putt provisions aboard, which defect shalbe supplied by the
magazine shipp; and in case they cannot be presently marryed
we desire they may be putt to several householders that have
wives till they can be provided of husbands. There are neare
fifty more which are shortly to come, we sent by our most
honoble Lord William the Earle of Southampton and certain
worthy gentlemen who taking into these considerations, that
the Plantation can never flourish till families be planted
and the respect of wives and children fix the people in the
soil; therefore have given this fair beginning for the
reimbursing of whose charges, itt is ordered that every man
that marries them give 120 lb. waight of best leafe tobacco
for each of them, and in case any of them dye that
proportion must be advanced to make it upp to those that
survive; and this certainly is sett down for that the price
sett upon the bages sent last yeare being 20 lb. which was
so much money out of purse here, there was returned 66 lb.
of tobacco only, and that of the worst and basest, so that
fraight and shrinkage reconed together with the baseness of
the comoditie there was not one half returned, which injury
the company is sensible of as they demand restitution, which
accordingly must be had of them that took uppon them the
dispose of them the rather that no man may mistake himself,