minister should receive an annual salary of sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco, 
and cask, with an allowance of 4 percent for shrinkage. 439 This act 
was duly confirmed by the King in Council in October, 1751. 440 
Several further acts modified this scheme of ministerial remuneration by 
permitting currency payments in certain sections of the colony in order to 
promote settlement or because tobacco did not flourish locally, 441 but previous 
to the year 1755 no general attempt was made to commute into currency the 
statutory tobacco payments to the clergy. In October of that year the legislature 
enacted generally that obligations payable in tobacco were dischargeable at the 
option of the obligor in tobacco or in money at the rate of £-/i 6/8 for every 
hundred pounds of net tobacco or twopence per pound. The act was to continue 
in force for the space of ten months and no longer. From the statutory 
preamble it appears that the act was designed to prevent debtor hardships attendant 
upon failure of the tobacco crop due to drought. 442 No organized opposition 
was made to passage of the act either by the clergy or by any other 
group affected. 443 
439 6 Hening, Stat, at Large Va., 88. For the alleged 
connection between passage of this act 
and Degge v. Kay (supra, pp. 371-72) see 
Eckenrode, Separation of Church and State in 
Virginia, 6 Va. State Lib. Rep. (1910), 21. 
440 PC 2/102/342. The Board o£ Trade made 
no comment upon the act in its representation 
advising confirmation (PC 2/102/315). Cf. 
the later comments of the Bishop of London on 
the provisions of the act by which patronage of 
the livings in the colony were taken from the 
crown and vested in the several parishes (1 
Hist. Coll. Rel. Amer. Col. Church, Virginia 
[ed. by W. S. Perry, 1870], 462 [hereinafter 
referred to as Perry] ). 
441 By a provincial act of 27 George 11, c. 8 
(6 Hening, Stat, at Large Va., 369) an annual 
salary of £100 was to be paid in lieu of the 
16,000 pounds of tobacco in the counties and 
parishes of Frederick, Augusta, and Hampshire. 
This act superseded 12 George 11, c. 21 
(5 ibid., 78) which provided for payments 
at the rate of three farthings per pound of tobacco 
in Frederick and Augusta in order to encourage 
settlement of these new counties. An 
act of 27 George 11, c. 10 (6 ibid., 372) 
authorized the inhabitants of the counties of 
Halifax, Hampshire, and Bedford to discharge 
their public dues and officers' fees in money 
instead of tobacco. In Halifax and Bedford the 
commutation rate was 12/6 per 100 pounds 
tobacco net; in Hampshire three farthings per 
pound of tobacco gross. The statute related that 
these counties produced little or no tobacco. An 
act of 28 George 11, c. 17 (6 ibid., 502) provided 
that the justices of Princess Anne and 
Norfolk counties should annually fix a price on 
tobacco not under 10 shillings per hundred and 
that tobacco debts due in those counties could 
be paid in money at such fixed price. The preamble 
stated that "the low situation of the 
counties of Princess Anne and Norfolk, renders 
many of the inhabitants thereof incapable 
of making tobacco, by means whereof they are 
subject to great impositions in discharging their 
tobacco debts" Cf. Perry, op. cit., 507; Jones, 
Present State of Virginia, 73, 106; R. Bland, A 
Letter to the Clergy of Virginia (1760), 12-13; 
J. Camm, A Single and Distinct View of the 
Act Vulgarly Untitled the Two-penny Act 
(1763), 26-27. 
442 6 Hening, Stat, at Large Va., 568. 
443 It has been alleged that the bill passed both 
houses before most of the clergy were aware 
that such a measure was afoot; that a few clergy 
interceded with the governor to withhold his 
assent, but were refused without any satisfactory 
reasons ascribed (Perry, op. cit., 438). Commissary 
Dawson related that he endeavored to 
have the bill rejected in die upper house or 
amended by striking out the words, "parish 
levies," but the bill was carried by a large 
majority; that the governor in a dilemma 
whether he should sign the bill or not decided 
in die affirmative upon advice of the speaker 
and the council (ibid., 447; cf. ibid., 462-63,