The dispute between James and the Company as to the amount of tobacco which Virginia should be allowed to import into England, and the charges that should be imposed on it, were settled by a contract between the two in 1622, this contract being accepted by the Company as the most favorable they could secure. Under the provisions of this agreement, they were to enjoy the right of sole importation, with the exception that for two years sixty thousand pounds of Spanish leaf were to be admitted annually. The King was to have an absolute property in one-third of the quantity brought in, and a duty of sixpence on the remaining two-thirds. One of the clauses of the agreement provided, that James should prohibit the cultivation of tobacco in England and Ireland, and that all that was produced there after the ratification of this contract should be confiscated.
The tenants attached to the public lands endured the greatest suffering, being unable to pay their rents, and in some instances, to earn a subsistence; many sank into hopeless melancholy and perished; others, in the pressing demand for food, left their crops to be choked by weeds and went in search of wild game.[1] Later in the year ample relief was obtained from England, as many as fourteen ships sailing from the English ports between May[2]
- ↑ George Sandys to Sir Saml. Sandys, Royal Hist. MSS. Commission, Eighth Report, Appx., p. 39.
- ↑ Abstracts of Proceedings of the Virginia Company of London, vol. I, p. 32. In a letter from Lord Treasurer Cranfield to the Marquis of Buckingham, dated “Chelsey July 21, 1621,” we find the following: “The king’s rent of £15,500 for tobacco is in danger to be lost or at best to decline much, and all the money spent about the plantations of Virginia and Burmothes will be lost, if there be not some present course taken to restrain the planting of tobacco here in England.” A copy of this letter is printed in the appendix of Neill’s Virginia Carolorum, p. 403.
