Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 1.djvu/430

 Muscovy Company were summoned before the officials charged with the affairs of the Colony, to discuss the best method of introducing tobacco into Russia. The result of their deliberations was, that it was recommended that an ambassador should be sent to the court of that empire with special instructions to secure the privileges desired. The length of the journey and the delays in diplomacy would have prevented the Virginians from receiving relief with the required degree of promptness, even if the Muscovites had been very much addicted to the use of tobacco, and their ports had been as near at hand as those of England, and their custom duties merely nominal. The committee also decided to call the attention of the King to the propriety of sending to the Colony two or three hundred pounds&#8217; worth of flax and hemp seed for general distribution. The situation there had now become so desperate in consequence of the low price of tobacco, that apprehension was felt even in London, lest the servants should, under the pressure of want, rise and plunder the stores of the planters and rifle the ships upon their arrival in port. In the spring of 1682, the year in which Culpeper declared that the only hope of relief lay in the exportation of beef, pork, grain, and provisions to the West Indies, the people of several counties