, but of corn, which latter almost every planter in the colony
hath."[8]

Such a "plentie of corn" must be contrasted with the scarcity in 1630,
for the current of prosperity did not run altogether smoothly. The
mortality still continued frightful, and "during the months of June,
July, and August, the people died like cats and dogs,"[9] a statement
especially true of the servants, of whom hardly one in five survived
the first year's hardships in the malarial tobacco-fields along the
creeks and rivers.[10] In 1630 tobacco tumbled from its high price of
3s. 6d. to 1d. per pound, and the colony was much "perplexed" for want
of money to buy corn, which they had neglected to raise. To relieve
the distress, Harvey, the next year, sent several ships to trade with
the Indians up Chesapeake Bay and on the coast as far south as Cape
Fear.[11]

Tobacco legislation for the next ten years consisted in regulations
vainly intended to prevent further declines. Tobacco fluctuated in
value from one penny to sixpence, and, as it was the general currency,
this uncertainty caused much trouble. Some idea of the general
dependency upon tobacco may be had from a statute in 1640, which,
after providing for the destruction of all the bad tobacco and half
the good, estimated the remainder actually placed upon the market by a
population of eight thousand at one million five hundred thousand
pounds.[12]

The decline in the price of tobacco had the effect of turning the
attention of the planters to other industries, especially the supply
of corn to the large emigration from England to Massachusetts. In 1631
a ship-load of corn from Virginia was sold at Salem, in Massachusetts,
for ten shillings the bushel.[13] In 1634 at least ten thousand
bushels were taken to Massachusetts, besides "good quantities of
beeves, goats, and hogs";[14] and Harvey declared that Virginia had
become "the granary of all his majesty's northern colonies,"[15] Yet
from an imported pestilence, the year 1636 was so replete with misery
that Samuel Maverick, of Massachusetts, who visited the colony,
reported that eighteen hundred persons died, and corn sold at twenty
shillings per bushel.[16]

Sir Francis Wyatt arrived in the colony, November, 1639, and
immediately called Harvey to account for his abuse of power. The
decree against Panton was repealed, and his estate, which had been
seized, was returned to him, while the property of Harvey was taken to
satisfy his numerous