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, three shillings a pound. More particular instructions were dispatched to Virginia in November as to the methods that should be adopted to improve its quality and to moderate its volume. The plants were to be set four feet apart, and the leaves to each plants were not to exceed six in number. The master of a family was to be allowed to produce only two hundred pounds, and each servant only one hundred and twenty-five. In preparing the tobacco for shipment, the stalks were to be carefully excluded. The quality of the leaf was to be examined by viewers who had been sworn to a strict performance of their duty, and all found to be of a very mean grade was to be thrown out.

The Governor and Council in February, 1628, expressed their approval of the projected sale of the tobacco of the Colony to royal commissioners, and in the following month the General Assembly took the same position in replying to the royal letter of August, 1627, but their consent was subject to certain conditions. They proposed that, for a period of seven years, the King should purchase annually five hundred thousand pounds at the rate, of three shillings and six pence a pound, to be delivered in Virginia, no charge to be made for freight and duty; or four shillings if it was to be delivered in London, the planters to bear the expense of transportation but to be exempt from the payment of customs. They were to enjoy the right to sell in Holland, Ireland, Turkey, and other foreign parts, all tobacco produced by them in excess of five hundred thousand pounds. The leaves to a plant