To
make matters worse, the tobacco was sold by the merchants to retailers
in England on long term credit at the planter's risk. If the retailer
went bankrupt, or his business failed, the planter not only lost his
tobacco but still had to pay the total charges, freight, insurance,
British duties, plus the agent's commission, which amounted to about
eighteen pounds sterling in 1730. Planters frequently complained that
their tobacco weighed much less in England that it did when it was
inspected and weighed in the colony. There were reports that the
stevedores were supplying certain patrons in England with tobacco of
superior quality obtained by pilfering. An agent in England was
certainly not apt to look after a planter's crop as though it were his
own.

The gradual destruction of the fertility of the soil in the Tidewater
country and the expansion of the tobacco industry into the back country
made direct consignment less feasible. This, and the various other
causes of dissatisfaction with the consignment system, led to the
system of outright purchase in the colony. This new procedure was
carried on largely by the outport merchants, especially the Scottish,
who were doing quite a bit of illicit trading before the Union of 1707.
Since the Tidewater business was controlled largely by the London
merchants, the new Scottish traders penetrated the interior and
established local trading posts or stores at convenient locations, many
of which became the nuclei of towns. After the Union their share of the
trade increased very rapidly, and at the beginning of hostilities in
1775 the Scots were purchasing almost one-half of all the tobacco
brought to Great Britain. On the eve of the Revolution only about
one-fourth of the Virginia tobacco was being shipped on consignment.

The factorage system appears to have been introduced in Virginia around
1625, and was actually a part of the consignment system. A factor was
one who resided in the colony and served as a representative and the
repository of the English merchant. With the establishment of a
repository in the colony, trade became more regular, debtors less
delinquent, and the problem of securing transportation for exports or
imports was mitigated. Some of the factors were Englishmen sent over by
the English firms, others were colonial merchants or planters who
performed for the foreign firms on a commission basis. As the tobacco
industry expanded beyond the limits of the navigabl