d produced varieties unknown in Virginia,
there is exaggeration here also. This is clearly shown by the fact that
at the end of the Seventeenth century England was sending millions of
pounds of her colonial tobacco to Spain itself.[5-2] The leaf was
brought from Virginia and Maryland, forced to pay a duty of about fifty
per cent, and re-exported to the Spanish ports, where it found a ready
sale. Had there been free exchange of commodities, the English colonies
would have sold to Spain more tobacco than the Spanish colonies to
England.

In truth the loss of the foreign market was a terrible disaster. In
framing the Navigation Acts it was not the intention of the Government
to stop entirely the flow of tobacco to the continent of Europe, but to
divert it from the old channels and make it pass through England. It was
therefore provided that in case the leaf was shipped out again to
foreign ports, all the duties, except one half of the Old Subsidy,
should be withdrawn.[5-7] The remaining half penny, however, amounted to
forty or fifty per cent of the original cost of the goods, and proved at
first an almost insuperable barrier to the European trade. Moreover, the
shortage of ships which resulted from the exclusion of the Dutch
merchants, the expense of putting in at the English ports, the long and
troublesome procedure of reshipping, all tended to discourage the
merchants and hamper re-exportation.

We may take for granted also that the resentment of Holland at the
Navigation Acts, which struck a telling blow at her maritime prestige,
played an important part in blocking foreign trade. The Dutch had been
the chief European distributors of the Virginia and Maryland tobacco,
and if they refused to take it, now that it could be secured only in
England, it would pile up uselessly in the London warehouses. They
understood well enough that the half penny a pound duty was a tribute
levied upon them by their most dangerous rival. It is not surprising
that instead of bowing to the new restrictions, they sought to free
their trade entirely from dependence on British tobacco, by fostering
the cultivation of the plant in their own country.

The colonists found an able defender in the merchant John Bland. In a
Remonstrance addressed to the King this man set forth with remarkable
clearness the evils which would result from the Navigation Acts, and
pleaded for their repeal. The Hollander was already beginning to plant
tobacco, he said,