untry produces: And that is the averice of a few
interested persons, who endeavour to rob us of all we sweat and labor
for."[197]

But the evil was to some extent avoided during the Commonwealth
period, owing to constant evasions of the law. There is abundant
evidence to show that the Dutch trade, although hampered, was by no
means stamped out, and Dutch vessels continued to carry the Virginia
tobacco just as they had done during the reign of Charles I. In the
year 1657, there was a determined effort to enforce the law, and the
advance in the charges of transporting the crop of that year,
indicates that this effort was partly successful. The freight rate
rose from L4 a ton to L8 or L9, and in some cases to L14.[198]

A more serious blow came in 1660. A bill was passed prescribing that
no goods of any description should be imported into or exported from
any of the king's territories "in Asia, Africa, or America, in any
other than English, Irish, or plantation built ships."[199] It was
also required that at least three-fourths of the mariners of these
ships should be Englishmen. Moreover, another feature was added to the
law which was far more oppressive than the first provision. It was
enacted that "no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, justic,
and other dying woods, of the growth or manufacture of our Asian,
African, or American colonies, shall be shipped from the said colonies
to any place but to England, Ireland, or to some other of his
Majesty's plantations."

The results of this law were ruinous to Virginia. At one blow it cut
off her trade with all countries but England and her colonies, and
raised enormously the cost of transportation. Although England was the
largest purchaser of tobacco, Holland and other countries had taken a
large part of the crop each year. The colonists were now forced to
bring all their crop to England, and an immediate glut in the market
followed. The English could neither consume the enormously increased
supply of tobacco, nor rid themselves of it by exportation to
continental countries, and it piled up uselessly in the warehouses. An
alarming decline in the price followed, which reacted on the planters
to such an extent that it brought many to the verge of ruin. The
profit from tobacco was almost entirely wiped out.

The effects of this law are clearly shown in a paper by a London
merchant named John Bland, which was presented to the authorities in
England, protesting aga