Forty-two citizens of Nansemond County ask the legislature not only to reject the request from Accomack County citizens to export oysters during the spring and summer months but to pass a law "more effectually to prevent the destruction of oysters by making March and April prohibitory months for the exportation of oysters from the natural shoals or beds." They explain that oysters exported during that time command low prices, being often harvested by "negroes who escape from their masters in the interior;" they add that oysters harvested at that time are "planted contiguous to the northern cities to be marketed the ensuing fall which business is Kept up until the intense coldness of the weather causes them to die," for which circumstance alone is the Virginia planter of oyster indebted for a market." The residents ask the legislature to reject the petition from Accomack County.
Result: Referred to committee on oysters.
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Repository: Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia
