Encouragement for the Building of Ships
The General Assembly of Virginia encouraged shipbuilding by such laws as those enacted during 1662: "Be it enacted that every one that shall build a small vessel with a deck be allowed, if above twenty and under fifty tons, fifty pounds of tobacco per ton; if above fifty and under one hundred tons, one hundred pounds of tobacco per ton; if above one hundred tons, two hundred pounds per ton. Provided the vessel is not sold except to an inhabitant of this country in three years."
Other encouragement by Virginia to owners of vessels, built by them, was the exemption of the two shillings export duties per hogshead of tobacco; the exemption from castle duties; the reduction to two pence per gallon on imported liquor from the four pence required of foreign vessels; and the exemption from duties imposed on shipmasters on entering and clearing, and for licenses and bond where necessary.
The English government discouraged manufacture in the colonies that would compete with home manufactures, but the building of ships was an exception. England needed ships and granted the colonies the right to build as many as they could. Throughout the whole period of royal government, there were enacted various laws remitting the duties on imports brought in on native ships and remission of tonnage duties. This aroused the resentment of the English shipbuilders, who had endeavored to put a stop to the building of ships of any size in the colonies. They were alarmed, too, at the laws passed in the colonies to encourage shipbuilding and complained that they had been discriminated against. Resolutions were passed by Parliament to investigate such laws framed in the colonies, and a bill, based upon these resolutions was proposed, but never introduced.
However, in 1680, Governor Culpeper was ordered to annul the laws exempting Virginia owners of vessels constructed in the colony from duties on exported tobacco and castle duties. The grounds upon which this order was based were (1) the injustice of granting privileges to Virginia ship owners, not enjoyed by the owners of English vessels, trading in Virginia waters; (2) the success of the navigation laws would be impaired by creating a Virginia fleet, able to transport tobacco, without the assistance of English vessels; and (3) owners of English ships might be tempted to order them as belonging to Virginians. Since the Virginia fleet in 1681, was composed of two ships, as mentioned by John Page, in a petition to Lord Culpeper, the English were thought to be unnecessarily alarmed.
During the 1660's, following the laws of the General Assembly, a number of Virginia built ships were recorded. There was much shipbuilding activity on the Eastern Shore. The mate of the Royal Oake, when caught trading illegally, stated that the owner had another boat in the house of a Mr. Waters, and also had a sloop being built there. About this time, a shipwright agreed to build between May and October, for William Whittington, a sloop of twenty-six feet keel, and breadth in proportion, receiving for his work 4,400 pounds of tobacco. In 1666, John Goddon entered a claim for a vessel of twenty-five tons built for him in Accomack. John Bowdoin built a brigantine which he named Northampton.
The size of the vessels built in Virginia had been increasing steadily. Thomas Ludwell, Secretary of the Colony, reported, in 1655, that there had been built recently, several small vessels which could make voyages along the coast, presumably sloops. Again, in a letter to Lord Arlington, Secretary Ludwell made the following statement: "We have built several vessels to trade with our neighbors, and do hope ere long to build bigger ships and such as may trade with England."
Colonel Cuthbert Potter of Lancaster County, who was sent on a mission to ascertain the truth of the reported Indian depredations in Massachusetts and New York, was an early settler in the colony, and had acquired large land holdings in Middlesex County. About 1660, he removed to Barbadoes in his own sloop, the Hopewell.
In 1665, James Fookes agreed to build for the widow, Mrs. Ann Hack, a sloop that would carry thirty-five hogsheads of tobacco, if Mrs. Hack would supply the plank and a barrel of tar; Fookes agreed to finish the job by the 25th of December. The following summer, at the plantation of Mrs. Hack, Fookes made a formal contract with the brother of Mrs. Hack, Augustine Herrman of Bohemia Manor in Maryland, to build a sloop and have it ready by the following October. Herrman is well-known for his 1673 map of Maryland and Virginia. Twenty years later, the dimensions of the Phenix, another vessel built by Fookes, were given: length of keel, forty feet; breadth, fourteen feet, nine inches inside; depth, eight feet, ten inches.
In the English News Letter of March 12, 1666, was carried an encouraging news item: "A frigate of between thirty and forty [tuns?], built in Virginia, looks so fair, it is believed that in a short time, they will get the art of building as good frigates as there are in England." At that time, a new fort was being erected at Point Comfort, and it was ordered that every ship riding in the James River should send one carpenter with provisions and tools to work on this fort.
In 1667, Mrs. Sarah Whitby, widow of John Whitby, petitioned the King in Council as follows: "The petitioner with other planters in Virginia are owners of the ship America, built in Virginia by Captain Whitby, and pray for a license, for the said vessel with six mariners, to proceed to Virginia." The workmanship of the America and her fine appearance had aroused the interest of the English, and expectations arose that Virginia might soon become skillful in building large vessels.
In a reply by Sir William Berkeley, Governor of Virginia, to an inquiry by the Lords Commissioners of Foreign Plantations, in 1671, as to the number of ships that trade yearly with the colony, he answered that there were a number of ships from England and Ireland and a few ketches from New England, but never at one time more than two Virginia-owned vessels, and they not more than twenty tons burden. He stated further that the severe Act of Parliament which excluded the colony from commerce with any other nation, was the reason why "no small or great vessels are built here." But other records of the time contradict Berkeley's statement as to the number and size of vessels built in the colony. In addition to those mentioned above, there is found in the records of York County, an itemized cost of building a sloop, the total amount being 4,467 pounds of tobacco. The various materials were furnished by the owners: Richard Meakins, 950 feet of plank; Mr. Newell, the rigging; Captain Sheppard, the sail; and Mr. Williams, the rudder iron. About four months were required to complete the vessel, charges for food running that length of time, during which a cask of cider was consumed. Some sloops were made large enough to hold as many as fifty hogsheads of tobacco, and could sail outside the coast. The sloop Amy, with fourteen hogsheads of tobacco, sailed from Virginia to London in 1690.
Dr. Lyon G. Tyler in The Cradle of the Republic wrote that as early as 1690, ships of 300 tons were built in Virginia, and trade in the West Indies was conducted in small sloops. Lieutenant John West of the Eastern Shore, stating that he had built a vessel of forty-five tons, decked and fitted for sea, petitioned the court for a certificate to the Assembly as encouragement for so doing. Two other shipwrights, Thomas Fookes and Robert Norton, testified as to the weight of the vessel. West was evidently seeking the subsidy of fifty pounds of tobacco for building a vessel "above twenty and under fifty tons," under the law of 1662.
John West was evidently considered an excellent boatwright and carpenter, for in an indenture of the year 1697, made between him and Robert Glendall, late of Elizabeth City County, West is enjoined by the court to do his utmost to instruct Glendall in sloop and boat building, and in such other carpenter's work as he was "knowing in."
In his testimony before the Board of Trade on September 1, 1697, as to the manufactures in Virginia, Major Wilson stated that very good ships were built in Virginia of 300 tons and upwards; but cordage, iron, and smith's work were "brought thither." During that year, a group of merchants in Bristol, England, had a number of ships constructed in Virginia. They were influenced by the fine quality of timber and the small cost of the work, as compared with the cost of similar work in England. Also, a matter of no small importance, a cargo of tobacco was ready for each completed ship.
The wills of deceased persons sometimes revealed ownership of vessels. Of particular interest is the will of Nathaniel Bacon, Senior, in which he left to his wife and his nephew, Lewis Burwell, "all ships or parts of ships … to me belonging in any part of the world." These were to be disposed of by Abigail, his wife, and the nephew as they saw fit. An inventory of the estate of one Thomas Lloyd of Richmond County, on October 27, 1699, lists one decked sloop on the stocks, unfinished, of about thirty tons; one small open sloop newly launched, not finished, of twenty-five tons; one new flat, one old ditto; one old barge; one parcel of handsaws, etc.
Sir Edmund Andros, Governor of Virginia, in answering the inquiries of the Council of Trade and Plantations, the clearing house for colonial affairs, in the year 1698, stated that there were 70,000 inhabitants in Virginia, and the number of vessels reported by the owners were four ships, two barks, four brigantines, and seventeen sloops. His report for the previous year had named eight ships, eleven brigantines, and fifteen sloops that had been built for which carpenters, iron work, rigging, and sails had been brought from England.