sentences:  Hard currency was scarce in Virginia, and salaries in the colony were often expressed in terms of pounds of tobacco.Prior to the drought, the price of tobacco had long been twopence per pound (0.45 kilograms) and in 1755 and 1758, the Virginia House of Burgesses, the elected lower house of the colonial legislature, passed Two Penny Acts, allowing debts expressed in tobacco to be paid at the rate of twopence per pound for a limited period.These payees included public officials, including Anglican clergy—Anglicanism was then Virginia's established church, and several ministers petitioned the Board of Trade in London to overrule the Burgesses, which it did.