“All Persons who have Occasion to buy or sell Houses, Lands, Goods, or Cattle; or have Servants or Slaves Runaway; or have lost Horses, Cattle, &c. or want to give any Publick Notice; may have it advertis’d in all these _Gazettes_ printed in one Week, for Three Shillings, and for Two Shillings _per_ Week for as many Weeks afterwards as they shall order, by giving or sending their Directions to the _Printer_ hereof. “And, as these Papers will circulate (as speedily as possible) not only all over This, but also the Neighbouring Colonies, and will probably be read by some Thousands of People, it is very likely they may have the desir’d Effect; and it is certainly the cheapest and most effectual Method that can be taken, for Publishing any Thing of this Nature.” _PRINTING IN AN AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY_ William Parks’s significant achievements seem even greater if one understands the difficulties of operating a business in the Williamsburg of 1730-1750. Because Virginia’s colonial prosperity was based on a one-crop economy—tobacco—little “ready money” was in circulation within the colony. The weed itself became a sort of currency. The usual practice was for the plantation owner or the small farmer to subsist on his produce and his credit until the crop was harvested and shipped to English merchants, who from the proceeds of its sale bought for the planter such articles as he had directed. Because all American tobacco was transported to Britain in British vessels, shipping space was plentiful on the westward passage, and shipowners and British merchants offered Virginia buyers cheap freight rates on finished goods. Thus such English manufactures as cloth, furniture, pewter, silver, and ceramics were sold to Virginia planters and merchants. The two-way trade between Virginia planters and British merchants slowed down the development of a large Virginia artisan group. Accordingly, local industry was limited in eighteenth-century Virginia, even in an urban center such as Williamsburg. Virginia craftsmen complained bitterly of unpaid accounts, the necessity of accepting such “country pay” as tobacco, corn, and beef, and the paucity of buyers who offered ready money.