which were owned and manned by English subjects, after leaving Virginia sailed at once to Holland, their captains declaring on their departure that they were bound for an English colony, or for the mother country itself. In the instructions given to Berkeley on his resuming executive control in Virginia in 1662, he was expressly commanded, with a view to suppressing further attempts to violate the terms of the Act, to transmit to England a full account of all the tobacco exported from Virginia, the names of the vessels in which it was loaded, the names of the masters of these vessels, and their points of destination. The object of this injunction was not only to inform the commissioners of customs in England of the extent to which the Navigation Act was disregarded, but also to disclose the persons who were guilty of trampling its provisions under foot.[1] It was estimated in 1663, that the illegal
- ↑ Instructions to Berkeley, Sept. 12, 1662, McDonald Papers, vol. I, p. 417, Va. State Library. In a petition, offered by Colonel Edmund Scarborough and entered in the Records of Accomac for 1663, vol. 1663-1666, p. 48, it is stated, that at this time each planter was required to take an oath that he would give a true statement as to the amount of the tobacco which he had produced during the season just closed, “to whom it was disposed of and by what boat or other means, it was fetched away.” A short time before, five Dutchmen, who formed a part of the crew of the Northampton, having been put on shore in order to comply with the Act, which prescribed that three-fourths of the sailors manning an English vessel should be Englishmen, the court ordered the payment to these alien mariners of their full wages and an additional sum to meet the expense of their passage to Europe, Records of Northampton County, original vol. 1657-1664, folio p. 86. There is evidence that even the customs officers sometimes connived at the violation of the Act. Thus, in 1663, the Royal Oak was seized in the waters of Accomac because it had come directly from Holland with a cargo of merchandise. The owners appear to have made with little difficulty an arrangement, with Colonel Scarborough, the customs officer of the Eastern Shore, by which he consented to allow the vessel to be loaded with tobacco and to sail directly to the Low Countries. Records of Accomac County, original vol. 1663-1666, p. 46.
