agreement with Charles with unreservedly favorable eyes, although a mingled fear and loyalty prevented them from giving free utterance to their views beyond stating firmly what they considered to be the only provisions consistent with the prosperity of the people, provisions expected quite probably to be unacceptable to the King.
It was not until near the close of the fourth decade of the century that another important attempt was made by private individuals, acting with the countenance of the English Government, to enter into a contract for the tobacco of Virginia. It was proposed at that time by Lord Goring and his associates, to purchase from the planters sixteen hundred thousand pounds at the rate of six pence a pound, delivered in the Colony, or at the rate of eight pence, delivered in England, an offer which shows how great had been the decline in the value of the commodity since 1628, when the prices had been under the same circumstances three shillings and six pence in Virginia, and four shillings in London. The terms of the Goring proposition received the approval of a number of planters who were in England at the time, including such men as George Sandys, William Tucker, John West, William Claiborne, Samuel Mathews, and William Pierce. The grounds upon which their approval rested were, that the planters would by the terms of this contract secure a profit of four pence on their tobacco, which would amount in the aggregate to nearly twenty-seven thousand pounds sterling; that one-half of the usual labor in the production of a crop would be saved, and finally, that the quality of the leaf would be so much improved as to make it difficult to distinguish it from the highest grades of the Spanish.[1] In spite of the great weight
- ↑ Humble Remonstrance of Divers of the Principal Planters in Virginia, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. IX, No. 100; Winder Papers, vol. I, p. 124, Va. State Library. In 1684, Charles appointed commissioners who were to make an offer to the planters of Virginia for all the tobacco they should produce for sale. He gave as his reason for this action that the people being “heavily muleted in their dealings with the English merchants,” were influenced to enter into trade with foreign countries, thus depriving the King of the full amount of the customs to which he was entitled.
