eed, the enmity
against it was in some respects beneficial to Virginia, as drawing forth
the most strict prohibitions against 'abusing and misemploying the soil
of this fruitful kingdom' to the production of so odious an article.
After all, as the impost for an average of seven years did not reach a
hundred and fifty thousand pounds, it could not have that mighty
influence, either for good or evil, which was ascribed to it by the
fears and passions of the age."--Chalmers. b. i., ch. iii., with notes.
Massaire, p. 210. Wives, p. 197, quoted by Murray.

"Frenchmen they call those tobacco plants whose leaves do not spread and
grow large, but rather spire upward and grow tall; these plants they do
not tend, not being worth their labor."--Mr. Clayton's _Letter to the
Royal Society_, 1688. _Miscellanea Curiosa_, vol. iii., p. 303-310.]

[Footnote 311: The colonists of Virginia, in a kind of manifesto
published in 1622, expressed their satisfaction at some late warlike
excursions of the Indians as a pretext for robbing and subjugating them.
"Now these cleared grounds in all their villages, which live situated in
the fruitfullest parts of the land, shall be inhabited by us, whereas
heretofore the grubbing of woods was the greatest labor. The way of
conquering them is much more easy than that of civilizing them by fair
means; for they are a rude, barbarous, and naked people, scattered in
small companies, which are helps to victory, but hinderances to
civility."--_Tracts relating to Virginia in the British Museum_, quoted
by Merrivale. See Appendix, No. LXII. (see Vol II)]

[Footnote 312: "Il faut envisager surtout l'influence qu'a exercee le
Nouveau Continent sur les destinees du genre humain sous le rapport des
institutions sociales. La tourmente religieuse du seizieme siecle, en
favorisant l'essor d'une libre reflexion, a prelude a la tourmente
politique des temps dans lesquels nous vivons. Le premier de ces
mouvemens a coincide avec l'epoque de l'etablissement des colonies
Europeennes en Amerique; le second s'est fait sentir vers la fin du
dix-huitieme siecle, et a fini par briser les liens de dependance qui
unissaient les deux mondes. Une circonstance sur laquelle on n'a
peut-etre pas assez fixe l'attention publique et qui tient a ces causes
mysterieuses dont a dependu la distribution inegale du genre humain sur
le globe, a favorisee, on pourrait dire, a rendre possible l'influence
politique que je viens de signaler. Une m