You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast. Hello and

thank you for joining the American Revolution.

Today, episode 16, Parsons, bishops, and trade.

Last week we talked about the end of the Seven Years War with the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

With the war over, American colonists began paying more attention to domestic issues.

Today I want to take a look at three of those issues that begin to define how the colonists were beginning to see their interests as separate from those of Britain.

The first issue, the Parsons cause, flared up in Virginia during the war.

According to colonial law, the colonial government paid ministers, Church of England only of course, with tax money.

Because real gold and silver was so hard to come by in the colonies and paper money varied so much in value, payments to ministers came in a more stable currency.

Tobacco.

The most recent law of 1748 passed by the colonial legislature and approved by the King's Privy Council,

permitted each minister to be paid 16,000 pounds of tobacco annually.

The minister could resell it locally, smoke it, or ship it off to London.

In practice, though, the Burgess' paid minister is the cash equivalent of 16,000 pounds of tobacco in Virginia currency. While tobacco

retain pretty good value every year, like any commodity its value fluctuated

greatly depending on supply and demand.

In some years the price was so low that the legislature had offered supplemental payments to the ministers.

In 1755 though, the price of tobacco soared and the ministers would have gotten quite a benefit.

The price was also high because tobacco crops came in short that year, meaning less supply. This also meant plantation owners were

doing worse than in previous years. Since the House of Burgesses was run by

plantation owners and not ministers, they found it quite reasonable to require the

ministers to be paid that year in paper currency at two pence per pound of tobacco, well

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