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.