A S INFL UENCED BY L EGISLA T/ON. 8 5 



the calamity of warr and other accidents may prevent 

 them ; and whereas this assembly takeing into their 

 serious consideration the low and contemptable price 

 we are allowed for our tobaccoes, occasioned cheifly 

 by the greate quantityes yearely made, hath thought 

 fitt, if it may be to abate from the quantity by ad- 

 vancing the more usefull and necessary manifactory 

 of fflax and hempe, and in order thereunto have 

 enacted . . . that the respective County Courts with- 

 in this colony doe, at the cost and charge of their 

 counties . . . procure one quart of fflax and one 

 quart of hempe seed for every tythable person . . . 

 and cause the same to be distributed amongst the in- 

 habitants, and that the courts failing to procure the 

 said fflax and hempe seed ... be fined five thou- 

 sand pounds of tobacco : And it is further enacted 

 . . . that every tythable [person] . . . doe make, or 

 cause to be made, one pound of drest fflax and one 

 pound of drest hempe, or two pounds of either, and 

 soe yearly and every year, under the penalty of fifty 

 pounds of tobacco for every pound of fflax or hempe 

 neglected to be made as aforesaid . . . and for the 

 better discovery of such neglect that . . . tythables 

 at the time of laying the levy . . . deliver upon oath 

 that it is of his owne growth." l 



This Act does not appear to have been 

 fully successful in causing flax to be 

 grown, and it was apparently evaded, as 



1 2 Hen. Stat., p. 316. 



