to the passage of the first Act of Navigation in 1651, although the general plan of promoting the increase of English shipping never lost its hold on the public mind. There was previous to this date, however, no distinct policy resembling in consistency and firmness the famous mercantile system of a later period. Whether the reason offered for the opposition to the exportation of tobacco to foreign countries was that the diversion of this commodity from England cut down the revenue of the King or discouraged the building of English vessels, that reason was urged either in instructions to the Governor of the Colony when he assumed control of its affairs, or in a special command from the Privy Council to the authorities in Virginia, or through the medium of a Royal Proclamation. The order in Council bearing date October, 1621, required that the planters should transfer all of their products to England to assure the payment of customs. The instructions to Wyatt in 1639, and Berkeley in 1641, directed them to enforce the same regulations. As an encouragement to shipping, a proclamation was issued in 1624, prohibiting the introduction of tobacco into England in foreign bottoms, and an order in Council at a later date repeated the injunction.[1] In 1641, a number of English merchants urged upon the Government the passage of an Act which should prescribe a clear and well-defined policy for the control of colonial exports.[2] Such a policy had been incorporated in the grant of territory to Lord Baltimore in 1632, the charter obtained by that nobleman providing that all the commodities produced in the province of Maryland should be brought into the kingdoms of England and Ireland, with the reservation to the owners of the right to send out these
