English merchants could
not afford to allow them a penny a pound for their tobacco when the
Dutch paid eighteen pence per pound.

The English merchants who traded with Virginia formed a tight little
group which used its favored position to charge excessive prices for
English-made goods, and to give abnormally low prices for Virginia
tobacco. Such a policy was not entirely owing to covetousness. The
English economy was shackled by a conception of economic life which
believed in the necessity of monopolies and restrictive devices of all
sorts. The Dutch nation, on the other hand, had thrown off many of the
traditional mercantilist restraints on trade. Holland soon enjoyed a
level of prosperity that made her the envy of the rest of Europe. Her
rivals attributed Dutch success to the energy of her people. "Go to beat
the Dutch" became a byword which has persisted to this day. Not until a
century later did the English realize that Dutch prosperity was caused
not so much by hard work as by the policy of freeing trade from
unnecessary restraints. As Dutch prosperity increased, Dutch ships
appeared in every sea, underselling all rivals and paying better prices
for local products. The complaint that the London merchants allowed only
one penny a pound for the Virginians' tobacco while the Dutch gave
eighteen strikingly illustrates the measure of Dutch commercial
superiority. No wonder that the London merchants should demand that the
Dutch be excluded from the Virginia market! For the same reason
Virginians, whether Governors, Councilors, Burgesses, or planters, were,
throughout the seventeenth century, almost unanimously opposed to the
English government's policy of restricting trade with Virginia to
English ships and confining that trade to English ports.

Although Governor Harvey supported the Burgesses and Council in their
strong defense of tobacco production, he privately wrote that he had not
only endeavored to have reduced the amount of tobacco planted "but if it
might have been, to have utterly rooted out this stinking commodity." He
reported that only the powerful hand of the King and his Council could,
however, effect such an end, so "indeared" were the planters to the
traffic. Moreover, Harvey admitted that until some more staple commodity
could be developed, tobacco could not be prohibited without the utter
ruin of the colony. Virginia was rooted to tobacco--seemingly for ever.

The Virginia planters' proposals, of co