now intending to restore in so great plenty, as not only to serve
the Colony for the present, but as is hoped, in short time, the
great fishings on those coasts, a matter of inestimable advancement
to the Colony, do upon mature deliberation ordain as followeth:
First, that you the Governor and Council, do chose out of the
tenants for the Company, 20 fit persons to be employed in salt
works, which are to be renewed in Smith's Island, where they were
before; as also in taking of fish there, for the use of the Colony,
as in former times was also done. These 20 shall be furnished out
at the first, at the charges of the Company, with all implements
and instruments necessary for those works. They shall have also
assigned to each of them for their occupation or use, 50 acres of
land within the island, to be land of the Company. The one moiety
of salt, fish, and profits of the land shall be for the tenants,
the other for us the Company, to be delivered into our store: and
this contract shall be continued for five years.

The reply of Secretary of the Colony, John Pory, was something less
than complacent:

The last commodity spoken of in your charter is salt; the works
whereof, we do much marvel, you would have restored to their former
use; whereas I will undertake in one day to make as much salt by
the heat of the sun, after the manner used in France, Spain, and
Italy, as can be made in a year by that toilsome and erroneous way
of boiling sea water into salt in kettles as our people at Smith's
Island hitherto accustomed. And therefore when you enter into this
work, you must send men skillful in salt ponds, such as you may
easily procure from Rochell, and if you can have none there, yet
some will be found in Lymington, and in many other places in
England. And this indeed in a short time might prove a real work of
great sustenance to the Colony at home, as of gain abroad, here
being such schools of excellent fish, as ought rather to be admired
of such as have not seen the same, than credited. Whereas the
Company do give their tenants fifty acres upon Smith's Island some
there are that smile at it here, saying there is no ground in all
the whole island worth the manuring.

Following this exchange, attempts at salt making, especially on the
Eastern Shore where the waters were saltiest, were renewed. Jo