The Virginia Gazette

To Messrs. Purdie & Dixon.

However some Gentlemen may have framed their Opinions as to the Modes of doing Justice, it is, nevertheless, certain that where there is not an Equality endeavoured at no Sort of Justice can, with any Propriety, be said to be done. That seems to be a Maxim which has so long prevailed in every Community, not despotically governed, that I cannot conceive how it has been ever overlooked by any One not disposed to do Injustice, or who is not quite indifferent whether Justice is done or not. It naturally then becomes a Matter of Inquiry, as well as of great Astonishment, as to the late Establishment of Equity by the Mode of an evident Inequality. We find that the Compensation intended for the Losses occasioned by the late Fresh has been distinguished, in its Valuation of the Tobacco lost; namely, that on James River is to be compensated for at twenty Shillings the Hundred Weight, and that on Rappahannock at eighteen Shillings. I shall not, in my Observations, attempt any particular Objection as to either of the Prices, notwithstanding I am persuaded that even eighteen Shillings will be found to be more than the general real Value of the Commodity from any Part of the Country; because, although there is an Injustice done to the Publick in giving more than the real Value lost, which I shall presently show they could only be obliged to compensate for, yet where the whole Weight of the Injustice is borne by the whole Community it is not of so crying a Nature as it is where it evidently falls only on a few Individuals, in Comparison. Therefore, I shall accommodate my Inquiry as to the Difference established in the Relief given; in doing of which I shall first introduce a plain leading Question, that my Arguments may proceed with Clearness.

Are there more good or better Planters of Tobacco on James River than there are on Rappahannock, apart from that natural Excess always to be presumed where more People are engaged in Cropping, which is certainly the Case on James River?

I call this a leading Question, because the Answer to it either in the affirmative or negative must justify or condemn, in Part, the Distinction made in the Compensation. Therefore let us consider the Question in the common and most sensible Mode of Reasoning which every Man is acquainted with, in Order to come at the clear Solution of it. That there are larger Crops per Share made on James River than on Rappahannock I readily grant, and also that larger Crops per Share might be well tended than are attempted on Rappahannock, even where the Proprietors of Slaves over-act (as it is characterized) their Humanity and Tenderness to them in allowing reasonable Times for their eating and sleeping. But when we consider that the Proficiency of a Planter as to his Skill (which the Goodness of the Commodity alone ought to respect) is best discovered by the Cleanness, Neatness, Colour, Scent, and Substance of his Tobacco, we Shall find that the Largeness of his Crop tended is very seldom so great a Proof of the presumptive Goodness of it as a smaller Quantity tended; for where Lands are known to be Something too fresh for either Grass or Weeds to grow on them, the Eye generally (extravagant in many more Things than the Diameter of its appertaining Belly) tempted by such a presumptive Certainty of much less Work, extends its Views even beyond the common Possibility of either the Labour or Care necessary in the Management of a Crop of Tobacco, by which Means it often happens that large Fields go without any other Labour bestowed upon them than the breaking up the Ground, planting it, and perhaps topping the Plants almost in their full Growth. Some Fields shall be seen in full Bloom twice in the Year at least; once with Suckers from every Joint, as it is called, and very commonly with Seconds turned out, seldom topped till long enough to house. Such rare Particularities in Cropping would demonstrate Nothing in Favour of a Rappahannock Planter, unless to be lazy and careless are the proper Characteristics of a good One. But I am not mistaken when the prodigious Richness of the Soil may possibly dictate the Necessity of such a Management, to carry off the over Luxuriance of the Juices, lest the Leaves of the Plants should thereby become too thick and waxy, which we all know are very depreciating Circumstances in the Commodity at the Market of Consumption, especially with the phlegmatic Glands of an Irish Chewer; or possibly such thick Stuff will not bear liquoring so well, for the Manufacturers to peculate upon with Respect to the Home Duty bonded, as a more chaffy Commodity would do in Order to clear off their Bonds at Exportation, as to Weight, but not as to the Quantity. However, Irony aside, is not the Goodness of every consumable Commodity best known to the Makers from the Accounts of those who sell it to the Manufacturers for Consumption? Should we then go to the cleanly Counting Houses of the Merchants for a true Solution to this leading Question, I am persuaded we shall generally find that the moderate Crops on Rappahannock do greatly exceed, in their neat Proceeds, those that are much Larger, on James River; as a certain Consequence of that Care and Labour which common Sense has before suggested may be rather presumed in tending a small Crop than in managing a large One. And to be sure, if we take in the surprising Circumstance of less Freight being paid for Tobacco from James River till a very few Years ago, by at least forty Shillings a Tun, than from Rappahannock, there cannot want any farther Proof of the Rappahannock Tobacco being full as valuable, at least, at the Market of Consumption, as the James River. From what has preceded, then, it seems both rational and clear that if either the Capacity of the Planter or the Goodness of the Commodity had been really in Contemplation when that Distinction in Compensation took Place, the Rappahannock Planter could never have been so injuriously disgraced in his Commodity. Disgraced indeed! when a Commodity never before looked upon to be more than equal in Value (if that) is preferred to it at least ten per Cent. Is it not then a great Pity they had not a better Proof of it now than their own Declaration, in that very arbitrary Mode which a certain august House lately took of proving their Right to tax America? A Mode only to be contradicted by a solemn Denial on the Part of poor America, and in this particular Case equally to be denied by the poor Rappahannock Men, upon every Principle of TRUTH and JUSTICE. But I do suppose the Corruptness of a Majority, everywhere, will continue to act under the Weightiness of their own Declarations. As to the Injuriousness of such a Disgrace, behold a Legislature undertaking to depreciate the Staple made by (perhaps) one Third of their Community, whom they certainly equally represent in a British Constitution; and say, he that can, what Method is there to remove such an unnatural Stigma! It is not long ago that we have seen it was too condescending in Parliaments to confess that their Errors could have any other Fortification than Inexpediency, that to acknowledge mistaken Principles would be to own their Ignorance of what they had been doing, their having no Right to do it, and in Fact condemning their great Partiality to themselves. Witness that odious Monument (the Repeal of the Stamp Act) of parliamentary Injustice. Since then there is no satisfactory Method of removing such a Disgrace, what can be more injurious? For, to reason with every just Presumption, what can prevent the fatal Consequences that such a Declaration may be attended with from all those various Arts very conversant in a Trade too much already in the Power of Iniquity, especially when under the Countenance of so noble a Sentence passed upon the Rappahannock Commodity, and one so faithfully registered, both in the Journals and the Act of Assembly? Again (for such an Injury ought never to be out of View) who is it that shall, without the greatest Caution imaginable, dare to set such a most curious Step in Legislation forth, adorned with that prodigious Indecency which (as Moliere says in a very precious Ridicule) it endures of every Thing, that could make it any Thing but, what it really is, a most...? Indeed I confess I dare not, although not subject to much Intimidation. Truth and Justice, like Liberty and Property, are so Twin-born in their very Natures that whenever one of them is made sick by legal Authority the other must pine and languish under the same heavy Stroke. How wisely then was that pathetic Form introduced into our Churches, which teaches Congregations in publick Worship, during the Consultations of every Legislature within the British Empire, to pray "that Truth and Justice may be established among them for all Generations!" For since Equality is now compelled to give up ten per Cent. of its Title to Equity, how long, may I ask, can we expect that Truth can maintain its divine Influence in such an A- y?

Till this never to be forgotten Period, whenever it became necessary to Set a publick Value on our Staple the Justice of the Day always rated it upon an equal Plan; every Twopenny Act was twopence everywhere, whether on James River or on Rappahannock. And when Prudence first discovered the only Method by which some governing private Interests would permit the Regulation of those excessive Fees established in the Fee Bill, as it is called, the several Officers of the Law, &c. comprehended in that Act, were all subjected to the same Option (as to the Tobacco Price) of the Payers of their Fees, all over the Country. Every Sort of Injury sustained in publick Warehouses, or otherwise, receivable by a publick Compensation, received that Compensation, without any Distinction as to one River's, one County's, or even one Man's Property being of more or less Value than another's; evidently because that every dear bought Inspecting Law certainly promised Nothing so much to reconcile the wounded Soul of the poor Planter to it, as that of making the publick Value of the Commodity equal within the Colony. Nay every Country Proportion ever settled in Assembly before was always calculated as to the several Balances due to the several Counties, without the least Increase or Diminution of the Quantum of those Balances; agreeable to any pretended Valuation made from Purchasers, on one River or in one County, as being either more or less in Value than another. To be sure, then, if the Rappahannock Staple is really as it is declared now, of ten per Cent. less in Value than the James River Staple is, it must be extremely necessary for all the above Acts, and Modes of acting, to be somehow altered or new modelled, that the Augusness of that Body may no longer be stained by so evident a Repetition of prodigious Injustice to those concerned, by Means of those Modes and Acts, according to the express Terms of this recorded Compensation. Lastly, to close with this Point in Argument, that Consistency may at least stand as a Representative of Justice, if the Rappahannock Hogshead is really worth ten per Cent. less than the James River Hogshead, what would not the Justice of those Mariners or Owners of Vessels before mentioned, in the Freight from James River to Great Britain, have dictated in the Tax laid for the Redemption of the Paper Emission, that is to discharge this distinguished Compensation? Certainly the Hogshead declared of ten per Cent. less Value ought no more to be taxed equally with the Hogshead of ten per Cent. greater Value than the low priced Commodity at the Market of Consumption, at that Time, ought to have paid an equal Freight with the high priced Commodity; which I have before asserted it did not pay, and dare, upon the real Truth of the Fact, to repeat it. But in this Distinction, connected with the Tax to redeem, it seems as if Consistency was only a Representative of Injustice; because if the Distinction can be supported by any Plea of Justice whatever, the Tax laid to redeem, by the very same Plea, must needs be unjust, if there is either Sense or Meaning in Words.

Let me now come a little closer with my Questions, having, as I am confident, cleared up the leading Point, that there is neither a better Staple made, nor better Planters to make it, on James River, than there is made, and are to make it, on Rappahannock.

What could be the real Motive to compel the Rappahannock Man to pay the James River Planter ten Pounds for his lost Hogshead of Tobacco, at the same Time that the James River Man is not obliged to pay the Rappahannock Planter more than nine Pounds for his lost Hogshead, which is the real Case, reduced to its short and distinct View, supposing each Hogshead lost to contain one Thousand Pounds of Tobacco?

This seems to be a deep Question indeed, and I could wish, for the Sake of a candid and clear Answer, it could have been less pregnant. However, Report, which seldom blushes at the Curtains that it draws over foul Actions, has been ingenuous enough to spread Something of a Screen before every disagreeable Thought, but of so gauzy a Texture as to discover through it every ill shapen Feature, with much of that dirty Ground on which this Colour of Excuse is laid. That says the general Price given by the Merchants and Purchasers on James River was twenty Shillings the Hundred, and it was but eighteen Shillings on Rappahannock. Before I engage this Excuse, to show how vague and futile it must be in this particular Case, let me clear the Way of much Chicanery that seems to lie in it, by asking of those who so readily espoused this mercantile Scheme, of settling the real Value of any Commodity, so as to give it any Sanction at all, especially that of Justice, in being governed by it; I desire, I say, to ask some one or other of them to tell the World in what Author, or History, are we to learn that the Traders to or in any Community ever derived to themselves the Respect concededly shown to them, in perhaps every Country, from any known Practice of Justice or Equity among them, in any one Instance of all their multifarious Modes of Dealing? Nay, does not all the World acknowledge them but as necessary Evils? Communities certainly cannot exist well without such Traders; and therefore we see, in almost every Country, that their iniquitous Customs are generally not only overlooked, but indulged, and even Laws made in their Favour, against the most known and most essential Principles of Justice and Equity, so widely does the Lex mercatoria differ from the Jus commune. Such then is the Excuse that I am to encounter, in Support of a mere Corner Stone in Equity, that of its just Equality. Before I point out the Chicanery governing in the Price set by Merchants upon any Commodity, and indeed from thence deduce the Treacherousness in the adopting such a Method for the Direction of a Legislature, I choose first to weigh the Reason in those Scales which every Reader can lift, and discover the Standard which they lead to. To give then this Rule the only Blush of Justice that it can have is to make a Supposition impossible, in the Nature of Things, to be true; namely, that all the Tobacco lost was actually in the Hands of Purchasers before the Fresh happened. And even, in such a Case, we must consider the Loss, unconnected with the only Obligation on the Publick to compensate, as a Loss only. I say then it might appear, to great Weakness indeed, to be just that he who lost twenty Shillings ought not to be paid less, and on the contrary he who lost but eighteen Shillings ought not to be paid more; but even then, at the same Time, the Obligation on the Publick must be concluded only to make every Man whole, as it is called. However, let us consider this twenty Shillings and eighteen Shillings combined, as they really are, with the Expectations of gaining by the Purchases made. Now to reason on the only Obligation on the Publick to compensate, namely, the real Value lost, we ought to put the Expectations of Profit by those Purchases quite out of the Question; for who can suppose that the Publick could be engaged for any Thing of so precarious a Nature as Trade is! Such a Reasoner might as well hold a Man bound that any particular Individual in an Army should neither be killed or wounded in Battle. As then the real Value lost was the only Thing that the Publick could be engaged for, and that purely because it had obliged the Commodity into such a Hazard, to be sure the Prices given by any One for the Commodity should have been no Rule to settle the real Value at the Market of Consumption by. This, then, was the true and only Complexion that the Matter ought to have appeared with. The Distinction taken between a Man's private expected Gain, compounded with what he really loses, and the real Value of the Thing lost, cannot, I hope, be looked upon as a Distinction without a Difference; otherwise I would ask what adequate Compensation can be made to any Number of Sufferers according to the Prices given, always compounded with the Expectations of Gain. Because Nothing is more variable than the Prices for the same Commodity, even at one and the same Time. Therefore I shall insist on this Distinction, as a Thing that will properly apply itself through the whole Argument. It is so certain, from what I have said, that it may be collected what I mean by the real Value, that I will not start any Question about that, nor where it is to be come at, but will go on to suppose that if Application had been made to the Accounts of those who sell it to the Manufacturers for the Consumption, I am persuaded that the Publick, in their Compensation, could not have proceeded with more Justice with Respect to their own Characters, and also as to every Individual concerned, without those odious Brands of Distinction set by publick Authority, which I much dread will produce a double bad Effect even on the general Goodness of the Commodity: set, if I mistake not, it has long been a Subject of proverbial Language that the Man who has his Name up will lie a-bed and hollow, whilst he who has got an ill Name, like the Dog, had better be hanged, both of which Sayings show no very presumptive good Effect on the future Conduct of either the One or the other. Again, as I cannot avoid introducing another prodigious Evil that will be effected to the Country, should publick Authority continue to show their Resolutions to destroy the Equality in the publick Value of the Commodity, which was the evident, and (as such) the only good Purpose intended by the Inspecting Law, when it took away that invaluable Privilege which every Man had of selling his Commodity at his own Door, without any Expence or Risk whatsoever, and this at the Option of the Purchaser, or his Receiver only, without any other bad Chance than that of his Refusal; I say I hope shall be excused in asking, though a little irregularly in this Place, what greater Curse could attend any Community than that of having its Staple Property (under much Expence and Trouble) subjected to the Determination whether it shall be destroyed or not of those who, as human Creatures may be, and sometimes really are, under the Influence of private Resentment, and of Men too who, from a long Continuance in Office (however necessary) must have found out every secret Mode of Revenge, as well as of Profit to themselves; yes, and such secret Modes that frequently defy all the wily Operations of Law. I hope I need not here string my Facts upon the known Cord of Truth in Proof of this Point, but every Man must assent to the Weight of the Argument. However, I will corroborate it by a similar Sentiment drawn from that Bill, but a little While ago prepared by the House for the Council's Assent, which endeavoured to restrain the Craftiness acquired by the long Continuance of the under Sheriffs in their Offices. But how small a Gnats must the Artifices of under Sheriffs appear, when compared with this prodigious Camel in affecting Injury to the Community, the Inspectors? The under Sheriffs can only injure by their secret Modes of Exorbitancy, and even in them but when Property is lodged in their Hands by some Process or Judgment in Law; but Inspectors may have a Fire ready, as the Minister of their Revenge, to destroy the Whole of a Man's Labour, because they have it necessarily brought to them for their Stamp, which alone can make it current. Therefore I say if the Continuance in Office long can be presumed to be productive of Evil in an under Sheriff, with only the slender Powers with which he is invested, to be sure the greater Power of the Inspectors must produce the greater Injury. Certainly, then, neither the Wisdom which projected that Inspection Law, nor that which passed it, could have entailed it upon the Community, had it been possible, at the Time, for them to have imagined that great Purpose of the Law, the making the Staple equal in its publick Value, would have been so soon forgotten. For, in the Name of Wonder, what other Good does this Law produce to the Country? Is the making the whole Trade readily acquainted with either the Largeness or the Shortness of the Crop an Advantage to the Colony? I am persuaded that a Trade greatly expert in the Arts of Speculation hardly thinks so itself. Does the making the Commodity nominally only better produce any Advantage, when the whole Trade are ready to tell you that the most indifferent Sort is as good as the best, in their Course of Dealing? It indeed effects a very serviceable Currency, as it were, wisely contrived by the Law to redeem itself annually. But is not the Equality in the publick Value of the Commodity the very Basis of this? Remove that Equality by your Modes of Distinction and then see how soon divers Contracts, &c. in Tobacco, will follow the Wisdom of the Legislature. And cannot the serious Reasoner foresee in such a Measure the Darings of civil Discord? I hope I shall not be asked what I mean by entailing such a Curse as that Law on the Community, when it is but temporary, as I have proved the Nature of the Sense that must arise, if the only possible good Purpose is taken from it, for I would not willingly point out the Entail in its Effect, although I might hint that a Majority that can sacrifice Unanimity in the Publick to their private Interest will not be very ready to give up the Advantages they only do receive from that Law, in the publick Warehouses that are now established, because of their Distance in Settlement from Navigation, notwithstanding the old Method of good Rotting Houses would very well answer that Conveniency; but they must prefer the Security of the Publick against Loss, because, as a Majority, they know how well they can pay themselves. Let me now proceed with my Argument as to the real Value of the Commodity lost, which the Publick was only engaged for. Notwithstanding every Body is obliged to consent to this, nay notwithstanding they are ready to own that the expected Profit of either Labour or Purchase must center in its Calculation in that real Value, yet no One seems to allow that it can be easily known; and from thence a pretty common Objection arises, as to the Difficulty in obtaining it. I readily confess it would have required a greater Expence of Time than a few Days Session; but certainly reputable Committees, or Commissioners, might have been appointed, and even empowered, as they have been in almost every complicated Case, to have done that Business with great Precision; and to be sure, from the Certainty of an honourable Reward, as well as Gratitude for their respectful Attention to the publick Disposal of near thirty Thousand Pounds, they would easily have overcome such Difficulties, started from mere Inattention to what every Day happens in almost every Conversation, or we all know that he who has had a Mind (for many Years) to be impertinently inquisitive into other Peoples private Affairs has had full Opportunity of being well acquainted with even their Accounts current, as well as Sales, by Means of those Agents in the Country to almost every House in the Trade at home, who have commonly Lists sent them in from their Principals (if some of them do not even make them out here) perhaps for the Sake of a little Puff, to accommodate some particular Interest to the House they are engaged for; a Mode no Doubt unwarrantable, because many a Peter thereby undergoes a Pillage for the Sake of some favourite Pauls. To go a little farther with this Objection, observe what judicious Verdicts our Juries, in Cases nearly similar, generally bring in, where the real Value of the Thing sued for is adjusted, not according to what this or that Evidence had sold for, or would have given, but according to the known general real Value of the Thing; wisely considering that the Motives for purchasing do often exceed the remedial Intensions of Justice, which can only propose an equitable Relief for a real Loss. In one Word more, could not those adjusting Judges themselves, from their own Accounts of the general Run of the Market of Consumption, have settled this Matter coolly and equitably? I understand they were cautious to select the Commissioners, to settle the Accounts of the Tobacco lost, from among Gentlemen who were not Sufferers by the Fresh. How much more brilliant would such a Virtue have shown had the real Value been equally the Object of their Concern with the Quantum! Publick Frugality not long ago distinguished itself in knocking down a few convenient Warehouses to the People, more unhappy in their Situation by the Inspecting Law; because those Conveniences, in Times of very short Crops, had become useful or more to the...

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or in a course of near sixty thousand Pounds, the only Method that could be easily taken upon to dispose of that Sum was to adopt the Modes of Specie always industrious in speculating Arts, as I shall presently show. Pres not such a measure, then, suggest also the Colour of the speculations really to be got out of it less for, or would stick, shall prove, to the Satisfaction advances the true Saying, in every inconsiderate Mouth, That every Thing relating Sufferers, in the Excuse before given When the Person who ad- then of Justice, that it can be the real Value of the Thing, I shall pay him a Saying can only be founded on private Calamity, or the pressing Necessities of others ; which can as little denote the real Value of the Thing as old Richard's Horse (if I mistake not the Name) did the real Value of the Kingdom that he offered for One.

Value of the Commodity lost might have been easily overcome, yet the Again, it is objected that although the Difficulty of coming at the real Urgency in this particular Case required a greater Dispatch; otherwise many Bills of Exchange, engaged for the Payment of the Tobacco pur- chased and left, would have been protested. Who can refrain from laughing aloud when he hears of a new Deity (Urgency) being added to the Par- theon, with such an Adoration to her Shrine in the Temple in which it is now erected, a very short Cut may be taken with Justice ever so little on many Accounts, for a Call for an early Consideration of the Loss ; but complicated with Difficulty. Urgency might be a commendable Motive, I hardly think the Situation of those wealthy Companies who either would not or could not pay their Bills upon the Certainty of a public Com- pensation, before demonstrated in many Instances, ought to have been of The least Weight in such an early Call. "And to be sure it deserved not any Sort of hurrying in the Consultations necessary upon so valuable a Point as the prudent adjusting a Sum of thirty Thousand Pounds equitably among the Sufferers. Therefore, however rosy it may have rendered himself of a disguised Approbation, I am so satisfied of its not being remember- ed, that I much question whether any serious Well-wisher to his Country mended, could the Publick have been properly advertised of the Mode in in the Remembrance of it. Perhaps, as a present Sufferer, a James River can say that this Mode aggrandizes deserving of either Honour or Gratitude Planter may be inclined to chuckle out a few Compliments on the Occasion. But let him beware of this Urgency; the Time may come when he will be inclined to think it was a Thing done in too great a Hurry, though now his own real Advantage may have blinded him. The proper Questions to have urged these Urgers of this Urgency with was certainly a clear Decla- ration how soon their Purchases would have realized their expected Re- turns, had no Fresh have happened, as they had the Market of Consump- tion to carry the Commodity to; as, to be sure, to have repaid them their real Value lost, in the Time they could have gained it, was all that could, with any Colour of Justice, be required of the Publick; then to have pressed then, as to what these Returns generally amounted to, upon the Foot of their Sales in other Years. I will never look upon that as a Bold- ings in the Investigation of Truth and Justice which can be clearly demon- strated, therefore I will say that I am satisfied (reserving the Proof until the Thing is denied) that five Pounds Sterling upon every Thousand Pounds Virginia Weight purchased is the general calculated Profit upon the whole Trade; and in Order to obtain this, clear of Expenses, they first butter, Order to raise a Cash Account, to be ready to emulate each other in the then re-butter, and occasionally un-butter the first Cost of their Goods, in Prices they give for the Tobacco they want: So that, although they no- nominally gave eight Pounds six Shillings and eightpence Sterling for this Thousand Weight (which is their twenty Shillings Cash reduced to Sterling by our present Exchange) they only returned to the Planter a Part of that Cash which they had before raised upon him by their Goods, sold to him with all the several Modes of advancing. Thus do they support their first calculated Profit of five Pounds, upon an Average, of each Hogshead, as before. Does not, then, the -of being governed by this Cash Price, in the Compensation given, begin now to sink? To be sure, by Means of this Compensation, they become greatly enabled to put into their Principals Pockets, if they are really honest, a much larger Sum (by the Money paid for the Tobacco, clear of every Expense) than ever entered into their Expectations from their Trade, upon their first Penny advanced, when they engaged in it. Men may talk as they please, but, with such a prodigious Gain, they must with that two Holes, instead of one, had been made through those Mountains to let the South Seas in upon us every Year, until we have Nothing left to repay their pretended real Losses with ; for to be sure it will be equal to a South Sea Profit, without the Time spent, or Danger of the Voyage encountered. And as to the James River Planters, if they really got twenty Shillings, not raised by Goods made rancid as before, a few more such Freshes would overlay their Lands with Gold, instead of Stones; but I much question whether they were quite so lucky as they fancy themselves, in this Business of mercantile Speculation. I cannot help here hinting at a very cheap Piece of Persian sold by one of them at four Pounds five Shillings Currency, and that at a nominal seventy five per Cent. on the first Cost. It immediately directed me, in Order to convince the poor deceived Man, to send for three Pieces of the same Silks in ; and thirty five Shillings Sterling purchased each of them, with this Remark in the Shop Note, " a little dear, because the Purchase not made in Time," so that more sold at two Shillings and Sixpence would have been a very cheap one Hundred and fifty per Cent. I am not inclined to joke with Planters, because generally their Labour is pure Honesty ; but they will excuse my taking a little Pains to show them how much like the old Game of Cross I win, and Pile you lose, this Distinction made is in the Price paid for the James River lost Hogsheads, and that lost on Rappahannock, that is, according to the Rule of legislative Proportion. Let us suppose an Account stated between a James River Planter and a Rappahannock Man. Both of them are engaged equally to make up each others Losses in Tobacco, and let both lose one Hundred Hogsheads. The Commodity is, in a Hurry, overblow valued on the Side of the James River Man, at twenty Shillings the Hundred; so that, at a Thousand Weight each Hogshead, he is to receive one Thousand Pounds, which the Rappahannock Man is to repay him. On the contrary, the James River Man, at the same ran- dom Rate of settling, is to repay the Rappahannock Man but nine Pounds his Hogshead; that is, nine Hundred Pounds. Now who gains by this? I will only venture to pronounce that the Rappahannock Man loses a Hundred Pounds. By such a Species of Equity, to be sure he must be ruined with a very few more Freshes, or at least thrown into the Gazette Disorder, that terrible Malady, in which the Principal of the Family, for a While, looks very well in the Face, whilst those dependent on him are starving within Doors; a Disorder best known (like the Lues Venerea) to that Part of the World most afflicted with it, and may go by that Name, as the other does.

Although when Justice to the Individuals of a Community is the Subject there is seldom much Need of Apology for being free, in Arguments founded on Facts, yet as there may want some Concession to be made for not bringing the Modes of some Gentlemen as forward in the Debate as they might probably wish them to be, I shall ask Pardon of the worthy Trader for only hinting before what I now intend to advance in Support of the Point which I am handling; namely, the Badness of the Com- plexion of the Excuse given for settling the Prices of the Commodity lost by the Fresh, by their Cash Price twenty Shillings on James River, and but eighteen Shillings on Rappahannock. I shall first glance at their Theory of Gain, or hidden Doctrine called Speculation in Trade, which is some- times, though not always, contradictory of their open Practice; in doing of which, as it must suit my Subject, I shall just point out some Reasons, which will operate as natural and fair Motives in their advancing the Prices of Things, in Order to show that, even in their fair Methods of speculating, no Argument can arise, without a Blush, to justify the adopt- ing the Price they gave, as the real Value of the Commodity lost, which the Publick ought alone to have been answerable for, and therefore far from being a fair Excuse for the Distinction made in the Compensation settled. Every Trader naturally resorts to those Places where most of the Commodity he chooses to deal in is to be purchased. A Number of Traders, it must be allowed, beget an Emulation in Trade, which certainly raises the Price on the Commodity to be purchased; and this, from the natural Family, or rather Frailty, in Mankind. On the contrary, where but a small Quantity of a Commodity is to be purchased, by being the Resort of but a few Traders, from a natural Propensity also to Gain, those few com- bining Traders can, and at any Time do, keep down the Price of that Commodity, especially if Cash, the vital Fluid, as I may call it, of the Community, is scarce or slow in its Circulation ; which, if I mistake not, was, now is, and for a great While to come will be, the real State of the Case on Rappahannock. And therefore the Prices given on either of these Rivers could have no Kind of Relation to the real Value of the Commodity ; or that real Value was the Thing hidden, upon which the several Traders speculated, that they might reach it by their open Prac- tice, without Loss to themselves or Principals. Again (for there are other Motives that may be looked upon with the Countenance of Fairness in their Art of Speculation ) Dispatch many Times balances an advanced Price, and often does more. A Quickness in turning the first Penny has Experience on its side in the Advantages gained, by raising the Price of Commodity to go often to the original Market with it. Those who sell pre Goods, dear, must know their Profits made, can well admit of giving fifteen or twenty per Cent. more in a Purchase immediately, to trade on upon. Now however fair any of those Modes may be, I am persuaded that no sober common Sense would ever think of adopting one of them to prove the real Value of the Commodity in Purchase by, Let us now search thinner Mysteries of Trade, to see if the Ground on which this Excuse is laid can receive any Benefit from any Beauty in the Colour con- tained in them, any more than it does from those less mysterious Arts. Is it never seen how often monied Men. that come to the Courts to purchase Tobacco, are made sick, as it is called, by the Market's being raised upon them, if they purchase at all? Yet, I have often seen it, and the poor Planter, quite ignorant of the Trap laid for him, if he gives into it, by the Merchants in his Neighbourhood with whom he generally deals ; for whatever they give him more, to prevent the monied Purchaser, is as certainly taken back in his Winter's Wants as he is alive. I will not sup- pose that the sudden Fall of the Market for Tobacco in the Country a very few Years ago, occasioned by the Merchants themselves, for some unknown very equitable Purpose of their own, can be entirely forgotten by every Body, especially not by the Merchants themselves, who sold more of the Commodity a great Deal than they had or could command, and were obliged to buy in by the Time agreed for, at a very great Advance more than they sold for, or to suffer by the Penalties of their Bonds in contracting, or by large Compositions made. Is it never seen, when a Trader has complied with his Quota to be sent to Market, that he assured- ly buys in publicly a few Hogsheads more at an advanced Price, in Order to sell out his Surplussage acquired in Trade at the same Price, though as trifling as he can. Has it never been practised by particular Friends to the Merchants, who get a good Price themselves, in Order to encourage other poor deluded Planters; to deal with the Merchant at the low Price publickly offered, because those Friends had dealt with them ? Did no One ever see an Eastern Shore Man refuse twelvepence the Bushel for his whole Load of Oats, at a River's Mouth, and sell them out at or near the Falls at eightpence? If they have, I can assure them I have also seen a Merchant refuse a Ship's Load of Tobacco at a very moderate Price con- venient to his Ship, but something dearer than what he wanted to lower the Trade to; when the same Person, truly wise in his speculating Mode of depressing his adjacent Market, has gone to another River and paid a larger Penny for Tobacco, by more than all the Charges of Demurrage and fetching it. This may be called a deep Speculation, but it neverthe- less turned out a good One to the same Owners, by keeping the contigu- ous Market down. Are there not frequently some Arrivals so sudden, and unexpected, that have occasioned good Prices to be given as suddenly ?
Lastly, although I could fill Quires with these secret Schemes in Trade, let me ask even the Leader of this Rule for compensating, into that Ma- jority which adopted it, if he chooses to own himself, if he has forgotten the violent Effort not long ago made in Assembly to sink that prodigious Conveniency to Thousands of the poor Planters, Page's Warehouses, in Favour of another Inspection to be erected at Newcastle ? How full the Committee Room was of evidencing Captains and Merchants against the Navigation up to Page's from Newcastle ! some of them deposing, upon Oath, that they had rather fetch Tobacco from Bermuda Hundred, on James River, high up, than from Page's to West Point, on York River both of them, and not many Miles from each other; Merchants deposing their having refused to give so much by two Shillings and Sixpence the Hundred for Tobacco at Page's, on Account of the Navigation, as they would do at Meriwether's, the Inspection then at or near Newcastle. But how did this turn out ? To be sure the Absurdity in the Captains, that had rather load at eight Shillings a Hogshead (the then Price from Ber- muda Hundred to West Point) than at five Shillings, the Price of a Hogs- head from Page's to West Point, demonstrated both the Truth and Weight of what they had deposed. And, most unfortunately for the little mer- cantile Hero that led on that Attempt, two or three Hogsheads of his own refusing, in a tolerable Purchase, as to Quantity, that very Year, made their Appearance; for in Verity, under his own Hand, he had picked those very Hogsheads out, and sent them to the Proprietor, because they had been passed at Meriwether's, and not at Page's.
Thus ended many a full mouthed Clamour. But now, to put on the Ram's Head on this Instance in Speculation, that it may occasionally drive against this wonderful Reason given for the Difference settled in Compen- sation, environed as it is with a prodigious Wall of Inconsistency, let us suppose that before the Contest was settled in Assembly both Page's and Meriwether's Warehouses had been destroyed, quite full of Tobacco, by some One of all the various Methods of Destruction. What, by the Rule of Merchants Prices, would the Determination have been as to the Com- penfation due to the Sufferers? The Point in Reprehension must needs be greatly illuminated by the Answer; and if it should be given by any One of the Majority, it must shine the brighter: For should they say they should have regarded the Distinction deposed, the Mentality of the Tran- saction would clothe itself in as reputable an Absurdity. But should they say, as the Difference in Price alleged was proved to be a mere Artifice, they should have compensated equally, then verily Robora percussit, Peccus quoque Robora fiunt. For certainly it would be deserting their own Excuse, given in the present Point, by substituting one as vague for so doing ; the Chicanery of which Excuse could have been as evidently proved in the present Case as it was proved in the Case of Page's Warehouse, could any Part of the injured Community have had but a Thought communicated of the Method that would have been pursued in Compensation, if the above plain Reasoning, from common Sense, could have made such a Proof necessary. But it seems as if the Thing was to be done in a Hurry, that the Mode might not be objected to; for I beg Leave to say that Nobody could know it but those who planned it, from any Proclamation given of that Meeting. We all knew, or rather heard, that there was to be a Compen- sation consulted; and as is natural, from former Precedents, it was im- possible that any One not made acquainted with the new Method to be taken could have dreamed of any Thing but an equal Compensation of the real Value lost to all the Sufferers. I hope now that Nothing farther can be wanting to show how unhappily this Mode of settling the real Value in the Compensation was adopted, from the general Prices given by the Merchants who purchased Tobacco, either on James River or Rappahan- nock; but perhaps my Faculties are rather too much fixed, by Age, to see Things in those agreeable Lights wished for. No Sufferer, I grant, as a Sufferer, has lost any Thing in his real Injury sustained, excepting those whose Crops are above the common Run of Purchase Tobacco (unfortu- nately never adequately relievable in any publick Compensation, for many Reasons) but as an Individual of the Publick, who have to be sure agreed to pay much more than they ought to any Sufferer; and certain I am the Trade have gained vastly more than they ever could have expected, and really much at the Expense of the Character of the Rappahannock Man as a Planter, which is an Injury of a very affecting Nature, because it is very likely he will annually feel it; for even the Houses of the Principals at home seem to be very glad of every Opportunity of excusing indifferent Sales, when they are made by them of the Commodity, and to be sure their Factors here will not be a Whit behind them in what they give for their Tobacco, with such a publick declared Difference.
However, to make the Design of my writing this more effectual, namely, that of preventing for the future such unnatural Distinctions in our Staple, I must now go on and show of what a strange Complexion the Partiality that made this Distinction was. Gentlemen, no Doubt, fond of declaring the Superiority of their own Commodity to that made on other Rivers, were glad of the Opportunity of colouring over what they were intent upon, by the Prices given by the Merchants as before; but as this Colour could only extend to their inspected Commodity, they were obliged to consider that if they did not preserve, in some Sort, a Dis- tinction in the uninspected Tobacco lost, it might argue that the Superi- ority declared had only lain in the extraordinary Excellency of their In- spectors above others, therefore they chose rather to improve upon the Absurdity they had been guilty of than show any Consciousness of their Error committed. Accordingly, we find they give the uninspected To- bacco lost on James River the same Compensation which they had given the inspected Commodity on Rappahannock; which, in Spite of every possible Refinement in either Language or Reason, is really valuing the Dung of James River equal to the sound Commodity of Rappahannock: For unless they can prove that no Tobacco was ever refused, or laid by to be picked, at their Warehouses, the Deduction is as clear as Words can make it. They may urge that they have allowed twopence for the Dung of Rappahannock. I readily grant that it is a prodigious Price for Dung any where; but still it does not deface the Deduction of their declaring the Dung of James River equal to the sound Commodity of Rappahannock, unless they can, at the same time, prove the Absurdity that it was all Dung in Rappahannock, notwithstanding the Inspectors had passed it, which I believe will meet with the same Difficulty in its Proof as that of never having any Tobacco refused, or laid by to be picked as Trash, un- sound, or unmerchantable on James River, all of them but so many cleanly different Appellations for DUNG. I speak of this particular Difficulty in Proof because it was those very Planters that first introduced those Artificers called Pickers to the Warehouses; and when they found they had got to the Denomination of Pickpockets, they then established them by a legal In- stitution, that they might keep them under some Controul. And I might confirm this Difficulty in such a Proof by the printed Report of one of their own Committees since this prodigious wise Distinction made, which shows that out of a Hundred and seven Hogsheads of the uninspected To- bacco saved after the Fresh two Hogsheads of them had before been laid by to be picked. I do expect that some Gentlemen will affect to be huffed at so home a Charge; but I believe a serious Reader of so clear a Truth will think they had better be ashamed of such a barefaced Conduct, and endeavour to make a Reparation for the Injury intended by every Mode that an injured Justice can devise.
Before I conclude I must premise that if you, Gentlemen, shall not think me too long for your Gazette, I shall be obliged to you, for it is my Desire that every Body should read it, which perhaps would not be the Case if it was printed in any other Form; because I declare, that, let me turn the Measure of the Compensation Settled in whatever View I can, I cannot see it in any other possible Light than what I have argued against it in, and I am afraid there is no other Light in which it can be safely put. Some may imagine me an old Fool in what I have written; if so, I think they have now a fair Invitation to prove me One. But perhaps such an Attempt had better be deferred to some future Day of universal Corruption, because I hardly think that in the present Hour of but a partial Corruption Folly can easily be imputed to either the Old or the Young for endeavour- ing to convince the Dispensers of Compensations to a suffering People that the Principles of Equity were in their Beginning coeval with that Fiat which first willed Mankind into Being; and therefore that they ought to be pursued according to their original and unadulterated Standard, and not to be hunted for on Dung-hill, as Men do for Mushrooms, those rootless, and at best but ephemeral Things.

SABINE HALL, July 1771.

LONDON CARTER.