Governor of Virginia written in the winter of 1631.[1] There was at this time no objection on the part of the English Government to the exportation of tobacco from the Colony in Dutch bottoms, provided that it was brought to the mother country and passed through the custom house previous to its re-exportation. The object which the Privy Council had in view was to secure the full amount of the duties.[2] The instruction to Harvey to require the masters of all vessels leaving Virginia to transfer their cargoes to England, under penalty of a heavy fine if they failed to do so, was repeated in 1633,[3] although he had earnestly requested in the name of the planters, in the previous year, that entire liberty should be allowed them in seeking a market. Special orders were given to Captain John Pennington, who was in command of the English ships in the Channel, to stop all vessels from the plantations which were making their way towards the North and to compel the masters to bind themselves to land their cargoes in some port of the kingdom.[4]
It will be seen from the tenor of this order that the requirement laid down in the proclamation of Charles in 1630-31 that all the tobacco brought from Virginia was to be imported into
- ↑ British State Papers, Colonial, vol. VI, No. III.
- ↑ The language used in the letter of the Privy Council was as follows: “You are to give order that none, either English or stranger, be suffered to take any tobacco from thence without giving sufficient bond with sureties to bring it all to the Port of London and to no other port or place within or without this kingdom.” A royal proclamation, issued in 1624, had declared that all tobacco imported into England in foreign bottoms should be confiscated. Rymer, XVII, pp. 623, 624. This provision, it would seem from the use of the word “stranger,” was disregarded by the colonists.
- ↑ See Letter of Sir John Wolstenholme to Privy Council, Aug. 14, 1633, British State Papers, Colonial, vol. VI, No. 80; Sainsbury Abstracts for 1633, p. 46, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Proclamations of Charles I, No. 138.
