28 Readings in the Economic History of the United States. CHAPTER I EXPLORATION AND COLONIZATION, 1583-1774 I. METHODS OF PLANTING A COLONY A. The Cost of Colonizing, 1648 1 1 The actual work of colonizing America was undertaken by companies chartered for this purpose by the crown, or by wealthy individuals on their own account who were proprietors of the lands granted them. In either case there was usually hope and expectation of a financial return from the venture. The "adventurers" who financed the schemes generally contributed their money as an investment or speculation. In this description of the new country there are shrewdly intermingled directions to prospective adventurers, a statement of the terms upon which colonists will be received, and an optimistic picture of the returns to be secured. Each Adventurer of twenty or fifty men must provide household necessaries, as irons and chains for a draw-bridge, two Mares or Horses to bred or ride on, Pots, Pans, Dishes, Iron for a Cart and Plow, Chains, Sithes, and Sickles, Nets, Lines, and Hooks. A sail for a fishing Shallop of three tun, and Hemp to employ his people in making them, as with hair, and canvas for quilts, as well on shipboard as demurring at the sea port, as with locks, keys, bolts, and glasse casements for his house. And generally fit Implements for the work or trade he intends. For trade with the Indians, buy Dutch or Welch rugged cloth, seven quarters broad, a violet blew or red, at four or five shillings a yard, small hooks and fishing lines, Morris bels, Jewes-harps, Combes, trading knives, Hatchets, Axes, Hoes, they will bring you Venison, ... 1 A Description of the Province of New Albion. And a Direction for Adventurers with small stock to get two for one, and good land freely. . . By Beauchamp Plantaganet (1648). In Force, Tracts and Other Papers (Washington, 1838), II, no. vii, 31-35. Turkeys, and Fowles, Flesh, &c. for a pennyworth of corn at twelve pence a bushell. Provisions for each man, and the charge from London. 1. Canvas, or linnen clothes, Shooes, Hats, &c. costing here foure pounds for two men to buy Cows, Goats, and Hogs in Virginia, which there yeeld sixe pound, and will buy one Cow, and Oxe, two Goats two Sowes, which one each man comes to 21. O. O. 2. Fraight for a Passenger, and his half Tun of provisions and Tooles. Il. 10. O. 3. Victuals till his own stock and crop maintain him for seven moneths. 31. 10. 0. That is, Pease, Oatmeal and Aquavite, 7s. five bushels of Meal, of which to be baked into Biskets, and five bushels of Malt, some must be ground and brewed for the voyage, both 11. 10s. a hundred of Beefe, and Pork, 11. 2s. two bushels of roots, 2s. salt fish, 2 s. Cask to carry provision 5s. five pound of Butter 2 s. 4. One Hogshead of eares of Corn Garden seeds, Hemp, and linseed with husk and some Rice from Virginia. O. 16. o. 5. Armes (viz.) a Sword, Calliver five foot long, or long Pistoll, Pikehead: six pound of powder, ten pound of shot, halfe an old slight Armour that is, two to one Armour O. 19. 0. 6. Tools, a Spade, Axe, and Shovell, 5s. Iron and Steel to make and mend more, and two hundred of nails, 5 s. O. IO. O. 7. Guns and Powder for the Fort, that is to every fifty foure Murtherers,*** a barell of powder 41. 10s. that is to each man 5 S. 8. A Bed and sheets of Canvas, to be filled with Huls, each man a Rug 15s. Here by bringing good Labourers, and Tradesmen, the provident planters may doe well by giving shares or double wages, when each man may earn his five, nay sixe shillings a day in Tobacco, Flaxe, Rice. . . Passage and diet of a man, his bedding and chest thither, Bedding will cost 15s. drams, fruit and spice Sum Totall |