Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/309

 Company, as long its it remained in existence, felt under the strongest obligation, apart from all consideration of profit, to promote the importation of English goods to meet the necessities of the people. This feeling was transmitted to the royal government when that corporation ceased to exist. The royal government was also in some measure actuated by the desire to prevent the diversion of tobacco to Holland, which would have diminished the customs of England proportionately. In the beginning, the Colony was in serious danger of suffering in the extreme from the want more especially of apparel and munition. The object which Sir George Yeardley was instructed to accomplish in his mission to London in 1625 was to obtain ample quantities of tools, powder, shot, and clothing, wine, aquavit&aelig;, sugar, and spice. He found on his arrival that an order had been issued by the Privy Council to the municipal authorities of Southampton to send a vessel to Virginia loaded with a large cargo of the articles needed there; to this order, an answer was returned that a ship was already fitting out in that port designed to carry a great store of merchandise to the Colony. In addition to this ship, a vessel of one hundred and eighty tons sailed from London and a third from Plymouth. In the course of 1626 and 1627, it was clearly shown that so far from the abolition of the Company having inflicted any suffering upon the settlers by curtailing their imported supplies,