resent," he said,
"that 40,000 people should be impoverished to enrich little more than 40
merchants, who being the whole buyers of our tobacco, give us what they
please for it. And after it is here sell as they please, and indeed have
40,000 servants in us at cheaper rates, than other men have slaves, for
they find them meat and drink and clothes. We furnish ourselves and
their seamen with meat and drink, and all our sweat and labor as they
order us, will hardly procure us coarse clothes to keep us from the
extremities of heat and cold."[5-32] That Sir William was but the
mouthpiece of the colony in this protest there can be no doubt.

But his pleadings were in vain. England would not change the laws which
were the expression of her settled colonial policy. The planters must
adjust themselves to changed conditions no matter how bitter was the
experience. Sir William was told to go home to report to the Virginians
that they need not kick against the pricks, but that England would be
most pleased could they turn from the all-absorbing culture of tobacco
to the production of the raw materials she so greatly desired. And
Berkeley did return determined to exert every effort to lead the
colonists into new prosperity by inducing them to devote a part of their
energies to basic commodities. In fact he promised that in seven years
he would flood the British market with new Virginia goods.[5-33]

Although he set to work with his accustomed vigor to make good this
boast, he met with but scant success. Lack of efficient and skilled
labor, high wages, and not very favorable natural conditions, made it
impossible for him to compete with the long-established industries of
Europe. After a few years all attempts to make silk and potash and naval
stores were abandoned, and the planters continued to put their trust in
tobacco.

That Berkeley was never persuaded that the Navigation Acts were just or
beneficial is shown by his answer to the query of the Lords of Trade in
1671, when they asked him what impediments there were to the colony's
trade. "Mighty and destructive," he replied, "by that severe act of
Parliament which excludes us from having any commerce with any nation
in Europe but our own, so that we cannot add to our plantation any
commodity that grows out of it ... for it is not lawful for us to carry
a pipe-staff or a bushel of corn to any place in Europe out of the
King's dominions. If this were for his Majesty's service or t