224 



TOBACCO PRODUCTION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



8s. (a) In November, 1781, the charge allowed for storage was 2s., and for reprizing, 5s. per hogshead, (b) and 

 tobacco fees were made payable in money at 12s. 6d. per hundred-weight, (c) In May, 1782, the export duty was 

 6s., (d) and in May, 1783, 4s. per hogshead, (e) and "Death without clergy" was made the penalty for forging 

 tobacco notes. (/) In May, 1784, an additional 3s. per hogshead was imposed on all the tobacco exported. (g) 



The following table exhibits the exports of tobacco from the United States for the years 1787-'88-'89, 

 immediately preceding the adoption of the present constitution : 



The following exhibits tlie depreciation of continental money rather than the true prices of tobacco. In 1777 it sold for 34s.; in 

 1778, for 70s.; in 1779, for 400.; in 1780, for 1,000s.; in 1781, for 2,000s. per cwt. But the prices given in 1782-'83-'84-'85 as from 36 to 

 40s., and in 1786-'87-'88 as from 21 to 30s., were doubtless the actual values. MS. Diary of Colonel William Cabell. 



In the argument of counsel in Doe, lessee of Baylor, v. Dejarnette (reported in 13 Gothaux, p. 152), in some accounts adduced (p. 92), 

 the net proceeds of sales of 00 hogsheads of tobacco made December, 1774, are given as 687 15s. sterling, and of sales of 73 hogsheads, 

 March, 1776, net 1,710 14s. lOd. sterling. In 1780 the price of tobacco advanced at the Richmond warehouses from30 per hogshead in 

 January to 75 per hogshead in December. 



In the progress of our task of compilation, the conviction has been enforced that it is invested with more 

 importance than we had apprehended. It is manifest, from the detailed abuses and frauds which were practiced 

 in the tobacco trade of the colony, that the accepted estimates of the extent of the product of Virginia, heretofore 

 published, must have been largely assumptive, because of the necessary incompleteness of the records kept of 

 the exports. This conclusion finds, too, strong additional basis in the varying figures presented by different 

 writers for the same periods. It is evident from the records and from the concurrent testimony here adduced 

 that the tobacco crop of Virginia for several decades prior to the Revolution, if not earlier, has been underestimated, 

 the more especially when a comparative quantity has been assigned to her in the English records of the combined 

 exports of Virginia and Maryland. Not only is it now established by authoritative figures and testimony that the 

 proportion of Virginia in such published reports was greater than has been assumed, but it may be presumed also, 

 from the greater latitude of exportation enjoyed under her proprietary rights by Maryland, that her apparent 

 export was largely augmented by surreptitious and illegal shipments of the product of her sister colony, to the 

 diminishing exhibit of the last. 



It is feared that a complete record of the tobacco product of Virginia prior to the Revolution may not now 

 be attainable, but the justice of our remarks is sufficiently established by the following array of facts which have 

 been presented in the preceding pages : 



A RECAPITULATION OP THE QUANTITY OF TOBACCO EXPORTED FROM VIRGINIA, AND OF THE PRICES, FROM 1619 



TO 1775 (WITH INTERVALS), INCLUSIVE. 



a 3<Z. to 3(2. per pound, the price in London. 



& No crop made ; planting prohibited. 



c Two-thirds of the crop destroyed by a storm. 



d Poor crop of bad quality. Price in London for bulk, 1J to Zd., and for sweet- 

 scented, 7J to l$d. per pound, in packages. 



e Exports of Virginia and Maryland reported as 30,000,000 pounds. 



/ Price current, at which estimated according to contemporaneous records, 

 174C-'C4, was 2d. per pound. 



g Price in London, lid. t 



A A short crop made. 



t The crop for tho period 17GO-'75, according to authoritative and concurrent 

 testimony, was from 50,000 to 60,000 hogsheads, of 1,000 pounds each, annually, 

 or an average at least of 55,000 puiinds; of which the average price, was 22.v. fid. 

 J>er baadred-WeigDt Tin; average price ill London in 1775 was 1'Jd. per pound. 

 In 1769 the price in Antigua was from fid. to Gd. per pound. In 1781 the piico of 

 tobacco in Virginia was iixed at Jii#. Gd. per hundred-weight. 



a Hening, x, p. 78. 



818 



b Ibid., p. 476. c Ibid., p. 489. d Ibid., xi, p. 95. e Ibid., p. 201. / Ibid., p. 241. g Ibid., p. 39-1 



