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The factorage system appears to have been introduced in Virginia around 1625, and was actually a part of the consignment system.

By 1775 the factorage system had developed to the extent that one planter found four firms at Colchester, eleven at Dumfries, and twenty at Alexandria which would buy wheat, tobacco, and flour in exchange for British goods and northern manufactures.

The Revolution cut the connection between England and the Virginia planters, but the factorage system was not destroyed.

The mercantile profit on fifty millions of merchandise, added to the agency and factorage of the Southern products transmitted to pay for them, will be at least twenty per cent.

The bales he spoke of lay on the deck, and showing them to me, he said: 'There are the goods; I hope you will take care to sell them, and you shall have factorage.'