opean market and
the way to do this was to flood England with tobacco until it overflowed
all artificial barriers and poured across the Channel. And eventually
this is just what happened. Since tobacco was piling up uselessly in the
warehouses and much of it could not be disposed of at any price, it was
inevitable that it should be dumped upon the other nations of Europe.
There is in this development a close parallel with the commercial policy
of Germany in the years prior to the world war, when no effort was
spared to produce a margin of all kinds of wares over the home needs,
which was to be exported at excessively low prices. This margin was a
weapon of conquest, a means of ousting the merchants of other nations
from this market or that. And when once this conquest had been effected,
the price could be raised again in order to assure a profit to the
German manufacturers.

It is improbable that the English economists of the Seventeenth century,
like those of modern Germany, had foreseen exactly what would happen,
but the results were none the less similar. When once the English leaf
had secured a strong hold upon the Baltic and upon France and Spain, it
was a matter of the greatest difficulty to oust it, especially as the
ever increasing influx of slaves made it possible for the planters to
meet the lower prices of foreign competitors and still clear a profit.
Thus it was that during the years from 1680 to 1708 the Chesapeake
tobacco succeeded in surmounting all the difficulties placed in its way
by the Navigation Acts, the necessity of the double voyage, the
re-export duty of a half penny a pound, and so gradually flooded the
continental market.

It is unfortunate that figures for re-exported tobacco during the
earlier years of the Restoration period are lacking. In 1688, however,
it is stated that the duty of a half penny a pound was yielding the
Crown an annual revenue of L15,000, which would indicate that about
7,200,000 pounds were leaving for foreign ports.[7-8] Ten years later,
if we may believe the testimony of John Linton, exports of tobacco
totalled 50,000 or 60,000 hogsheads, or from 25,000,000 to 30,000,000
pounds. Not more than a fourth of the colonial leaf, he tells us, was
consumed in England itself.[7-9] Once more Virginia and Maryland were
producing tobacco for all Europe, once more they enjoyed a world market.

This trade was extended from one end of the continent to the other.
Vessels laden with