Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/389

 In passing the Navigation laws, common prudence suggested to Cromwell and Charles alike the wisdom of prohibiting the cultivation of tobacco in England. It was anticipated that the production of this commodity there would augment the quantity to be vented at a time when the market had been restricted practically to the mother country, and would, therefore, by lowering prices, discourage attention to it in the Colonies, especially in Virginia; and to that extent would not only deprive the people there of their principal means of livelihood, but also reduce the volume of the national revenue from customs. We have seen that when it was proposed, in the time of James the First and Charles the First, to establish a monopoly in the leaf by contract, proclamations were issued to put an end to the cultivation of the plant in English soil; the same motive led to a similar prohibition when the monopoly rested with the English people, instead of with a few individuals as in previous reigns. Before the passage of the Act of 1651, tobacco was produced in large quantities in Gloucester, Devon, Somerset, and Oxford Shires, and its quality is represented to have been so fine, that it was frequently offered for sale and purchased in London as