Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/44

42 year of his reign, on the petition of the House of Commons, James consented to prohibit the importation of all tobacco except such as should be of the growth of the English plantations; but this he professed to do without any abatement of his old and well-known aversion to the useless and pernicious weed, and solely because he had been often and earnestly importuned to that effect by many of his loving subjects, planters and adventurers in Virginia and the Somers Isles, on the ground that those colonies were but yet in their infancy, and could not be brought to maturity unless he should be pleased for a time to tolerate their planting and vending of tobacco. The proclamation also strictly prohibited the introduction of any tobacco from Scotland or Ireland; but it appears, from many more proclamations that were issued in the course of the next reign, absolutely forbidding the cultivation of the herb in any of the home dominions of the crown, that it continued to be raised in large quantities for a long time after this in England itself, as well as in both those countries.

The march both of colonization and of commerce appears to have been considerably accelerated during the space that elapsed from the accession of Charles I. to the breaking out of the war between the king and parliament. In the first year of his reign, Charles, on the ground that such a colony was not best managed by an incorporated company, "consisting of a multitude of persons of various dispositions, amongst whom affairs of the greatest moment are ruled by a majority of votes," ordained by a proclamation that the government of Virginia should henceforth depend immediately on himself, and be administered by a governor and resident council appointed by the crown and acting in subordination to the privy council at home. In making this change, Charles treated the charter of the Virginia Company as having been annulled by his father; and James, indeed, in his proclamation of the preceding year, already quoted, declares that, having by the advice of his privy council resolved to alter the charters of the said company as to points of government, and the treasurer and company not