doubtless referred to the total disregard, on the part of the owners of these vessels, of the rule requiring that a license should be obtained from the Council of State to make the transportation legal. It is a strong evidence that the Virginians did not enjoy, even in 1656, an unqualified free trade, that they found it necessary to protest against the ordinance of 1650, as well as the Act of 1651, both of which had been passed before the surrender to the Commissioners. It was doubtless in deference to the Navigation law that they placed, in 1658, a duty of ten shillings upon every hogshead of tobacco purchased in the Colony with Dutch goods and afterwards dispatched in a Dutch or English vessel bound for a foreign or American port.[1] If, however, the tobacco was sent out in an English ship, which was to discharge its cargo in England, the duty was not to be laid. The impost of ten shillings on each cask, carried on board of a Dutch vessel to be transferred abroad, was possibly in addition to the two shillings levied upon every hogshead exported from the Colony, without regard to the nationality of the owner, or the point of destination which his vessel had in view, this new tax having its origin in a law passed at the same session. In the year following its enactment,
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. I, p. 469.
