14. What rivers, harbours or roads are there in or about your plantation and government, and of what depth and soundings are they? _Answer_. Rivers, we have four, as I named before, all able, safely and severally to bear an harbour a thousand ships of the greatest burthen. 15. What number of planters, servants and slaves; and how many parishes are there in your plantation? _Answer._ We suppose, and I am very sure we do not much miscount, that there is in Virginia above forty thousand persons, men, women and children, and of which there are two thousand _black slaves_, six thousand _christian servants_, for a short time; the rest are born in the country or have come in to settle and seat, in bettering their condition in a growing country. 16. What number of English, Scots, or Irish have for these seven years past came yearly to plant ... within your government; as also what _blacks_ or _slaves_ have been brought in ...? _Answer._ Yearly we suppose there comes in, of servants, about fifteen hundred, of which most are English, few Scotch, and fewer Irish, and not above two or three ships of Negroes in seven years.[104] 17. [Mortality? The answer expresses inability to give exact figures, from lack of a "register office," but insists upon improvements in health of new immigrants as compared with earlier times.] 18. What number of ships to trade yearly to and from your plantations, and of what burthen are they? _Answer._ English ships, near eighty, come out of England and Ireland every year for tobacco; few New England ketches; =_but of our own we never had yet more than two at one time, and those not more than twenty tons burthen_=. 19. What obstructions do you find to the improvement of trade and navigation ...? _Answer._ =_Mighty and destructive, by that severe act of parliament which excludes us the having any commerce with any nation in Europe but our own._=[105] [Navigation Acts of 1660, 1663] ... Besides this, we cannot procure any skillfull men for our now hopefull commodity, silk; for it is not lawfull for us to carry a pipestave or a barrel of corn to any place in Europe out of the king's dominions.[106] If this were for his majesty's service or the good of his subjects, we should not repine, whatever our sufferings ... but on my soul, it is the contrary for both. And this is the cause why no small or great vessels are built here;[107] for we are most obedient to all laws, whilst the New England-men break through, and trade to any place that their interests lead them. 20. What advantages ... do you observe that may be gained to your trade or navigation? _Answer._ None, unless we had liberty to transport our pipe staves, timber and corn to other places besides the king's dominions. 21. What rates and duties are charged and payable upon any goods exported out of your plantation, whither of your own growth or manufacture, or otherwise, as also upon goods imported?