new patent to resolve the
disputes. With suggestions and counter-suggestions, the debate dragged
on through the spring, summer and fall. About the time the Northern
Colony had arranged to exclude the Southern Colony from free fishing,
the King stepped in, declaring that "if anything were passed in the New
England patent that might be prejudicial to the Southern Colony it was
done without his knowledge and that he has been abused thereby by those
that pretended otherwise to him." Finally, after a year-and-a-half of
cross-purposes, agreement was reached:

June 18, 1621. There was a petition exhibited unto His Majesty in
the name of the patentees and adventurers in the plantation of New
England concerning some difference between the Southern and
Northern Colonies, the said petition was by His Majesty referred to
the consideration of the Lords. Their Lordships, upon the hearing
and debating of the matter at large and by the consent of both
Colonies, did establish and confirm two former orders, the one
bearing date of the 16th of March 1620, agreed upon by the Duke of
Lenox and the Earl of Arundell; the other of the 21st of July 1620
ordered by the Board whereby it was thought fit that the said
colonies should fish at sea within the limits and bounds of each
other reciprocally, with this limitation that it be only for the
sustentation of the people of the Colonies there and for the
transportation of people into either Colony. Further it was ordered
at this time by their Lordships that they should have freedom of
the shore for drying of their nets and taking and saving of their
fish and to have wood for their necessary uses, by the assignment
of the Governors at reasonable rates. Lastly the patent of the
Northern Colony shall be renewed according to the premises, and
those of the Southern plantation to have a sight thereof before it
be engrossed and the former patent to be delivered into the hand of
the patentees.

In an effort to encourage Virginians to salt their own fish, an order
from London recommended the reopening of the old sea-water-evaporators
on Smith's island, off Cape Charles, where salt had been produced in
the first days. The Virginia Company advised the Governor and Council
in 1620:

The last commodity, but not of least importance for health, is
SALT: the works whereof having been lately suffered to decay; we