Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/293

 Virginia as well as from the Somers Isles, in 1622, disposing of their cargoes of tobacco in Holland, on which account the Privy Council instructed the officers in the two Colonies to impose a heavy fine upon the owners.

The loss which would have fallen upon the royal revenue by a permanent diversion of even a part of the annual tobacco crop of Virginia to Holland, would have increased with the progress of time. In the letters patent of 1609, the King had granted to the London Company exemption, during twenty-one years, from every form of custom and subsidy in excess of five per cent upon such commodities and merchandise as were imported into England, but the grant of this privilege was altogether disregarded, and in a manner giving a marked advantage to the Spanish importers. The highest grades of the Spanish leaf were sold in London at the rate of eighteen shillings a pound, while the Virginian leaf, which, previous to 1620, had never brought more than five shillings in the highest grades, and which in 1621 sank to two shillings, maintained in the superior grades a general average of only three shillings.