110 THE HORSE OF AMERICA. 



what the company had done in the past toward populating and 

 supplying the colonists with live stock. It is stated that they 

 had sent twelve ships, taking out one thousand two hundred and 

 sixty-one persons, making the total number in Virginia at that 

 date about two thousand four hundred. The exportations. 

 include five hundred cattle, with some horses and goats, and an 

 infinite number of swine. In 1620 the company ordered twenty 

 mares to be sent over, at a cost, delivered, of fifteen pounds 

 each. From the price of horses in England at that day, I would 

 infer that somebody was making money out of the colonists. 



In a little work published in London, 1646, entitled "A Per- 

 fect Description of Virginia," the author says that "There are in 

 Virginia, of an excellent raise (race), about two hundred horses 

 and mares." It is evident that this statement is a mere estimate, 

 and I am disposed to think it a very wild estimate from what follows 

 in a very few years. It is true that horses do not propagate and 

 increase as fast as any other variety of domestic animals, but 

 under the circumstances every effort would be made to increase 

 the stock, and from what follows, I think my criticism will be 

 sustained. 



In the legislation of the colony we find no mention of horses, 

 till the year 1657, when the exportation of mares was prohibited. 

 Eleven years after this (1668) this restriction was removed and 

 the exportation of both mares and horses permitted. The very 

 next year, 1669, the importation of more horses was prohibited 

 by legislative enactment. From this it would seem that there 

 were already too many horses in the colony, or possibly some 

 horse breeder had begun to realize that there were better horses 

 in some of the other colonies that were finding a market in Vir- 

 ginia, and they thus sought "protection" for their own stock. 



This prohibition could not have been aimed at the mother 

 country, for the prices obtained would not justify the cost and 

 risk of a sea voyage. We must, therefore, conclude that it was 

 intended to shut out the New England colonies, which were 

 already shipping horses to all the settlements on the seaboard, as 

 well as to some of the West India Islands. In this we see at what 

 an early date commenced the interchange of commodities among 

 the colonies. As early as 1647 the Dutch authorities at New 

 Amsterdam authorized Isaac Allerton to sell twenty or twenty- 

 five horses to Virginia. 



The court records of Henrico County, Virginia, for the year 1677 



