umbly desire to be informed from your
honors," wrote Governor Harvey to the Virginia Commissioners in 1632,
"whether there be any obstacle why we may not have the same freedome of
his Majesties other subjects to seek our best market."[4-33]

But Harvey was attacking what already had become a fixed policy of the
Crown, a policy which was to remain the cornerstone of the British
colonial system for centuries. The Government had, therefore, not the
slightest intention of yielding, and from time to time issued strict
orders that all colonial tobacco, whether of Virginia or the West
Indies, be brought only to England or to English colonies. When Sir
William Berkeley was appointed Governor in 1642 he was instructed to
"bee verry careful that no ships or other vessels whatsoever depart from
thence, freighted with tobacco or other commodities which that country
shall afford, before bond with sufficient securities be taken to his
Majesty's use, to bring the same directly into his Majesty's Dominions
and not elsewhere."[4-34]

Despite the insistence of the British Government in this matter, there
is abundant evidence to show that the Virginians continued to indulge in
direct trade with the continent for many years after the overthrow of
the Company. In 1632 Governor Harvey wrote that "our intrudinge
neighbours, the Dutch, doe allow us eighteen peance p. pound" for
tobacco, while a few months later we find him reporting the attempt of
John Constable and others "to defraud his Majesty of his duties by
unloading in the Netherlands."[4-35]

With the advent of the English Civil War and throughout the Commonwealth
period Virginia enjoyed a large degree of independence and found it
possible to trade with the Dutch almost with impunity. Even the strict
Berkeley seems to have felt it no disloyalty for the planters to seek
foreign markets for their staple while the mother country was torn by
the contending armies of King and Parliament. And so the merchantmen of
Flushing and Amsterdam pushed their prows into every river and creek in
Virginia and Maryland, taking off large quantities of tobacco and giving
in return the celebrated manufactured goods of their own country. At
Christmas 1648, if we may believe the testimony of the author of _A New
Description of Virginia_, there were trading in the colony ten ships
from London, two from Bristol, seven from New England and twelve from
Holland. In 1655 the statement was made that "there was usu