Some of these towns actually were laid out, each on a 50-acre tract of half-acre lots, but only 9 tracts were built upon. The Act soon lagged and collapsed. It was unpopular with the colonists, who were obliged to transport their tobacco to distant warehouses and to pay storage fees; it was ignored by shipmasters, who were in the habit of dealing directly with planters at their wharves and who were not interested in making it any easier for His Majesty's customs collectors.[5] Nevertheless, efforts to come up with a third act began in 1688.[6] William Fitzhugh, especially, was articulate in his alarm over Virginia's one-crop economy, the effects of which the towns were supposed to mitigate. At this time he referred to tobacco as "our most despicable commodity." A year later, he remarked, "it is more uncertain for a Planter to get money by consigned Tob^o then to get a prize in a lottery, there being twenty chances for one chance."[7] In April 1691 the Act for Ports was passed, the House, significantly, recording only one dissenting vote.[8] Unlike its predecessor, which encouraged trades and crafts, this Act was justified purely on the basis of overcoming the "great opportunity ... given to such as attempt to import or export goods and merchandises, without entering or paying the duties and customs due thereupon, much practised by greedy and covetous persons." It provided that all exports and imports should be taken up or set down at the specified ports and nowhere else, under penalty of forfeiting ship, gear, and cargo, and that the law should become effective October 1, 1692. The towns again were to be surveyed and laid out in 50-acre tracts. Feoffees, to be appointed, would grant half-acre lots on a pro rata first-cost basis. Grantees "shall within the space of four months next ensueing such grant begin and without delay proceed to build and finish on each half acre one good house, to containe twenty foot square at the least, wherein if he fails to performe them such grant to be void in law, and the lands therein granted lyable to the choyce and purchase of any other person." Justices of the county courts were to fill vacancies among the feoffees and to appoint customs collectors.[9] FOOTNOTES: [1] WILLIAM WALLER HENING, _The Statutes at Large Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia_ (New York, 1823), vol. 2, pp. 172-176. [2] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 471-478.