Page:Economic History of Virginia Vol 2.djvu/315

 little attention seems to have been paid to the wishes in this respect of the authorities in England. In the embittered controversy that arose in 1635 between Governor Harvey and Samuel Mathews, one of the gravest charges brought against the latter by the former was, that in the face of the expressed command of the Privy Council that all commerce with the Dutch should cease, he had admitted merchants from Holland into his house and had large transactions with them. The open way in which they traded is disclosed by abundant evidence. Thus in 1634 there arrived in the Colony a ship from the Low Countries which disembarked one hundred and forty passengers who had been taken on board when the vessel touched at the Bermudas in the course of its voyage to Virginia. In the following year, Devries, a Dutch captain of distinction, visited the Colony and disposed of his cargo apparently with as much freedom from restraint as if he had been an English subject. The character of the business is revealed in the fact that he was compelled to disperse his goods among the planters upon the security of liens on the growing crop. In the autumn of the same year, he returned to Virginia, and his first step after his arrival was to obtain a license entitling him to the privilege of sailing up and down James River for the purpose of receiving from his debtors the amount of tobacco for which they were bound to him. He seems to have had poor success in gathering his dues in hand. The volume of the crop was small and the greater portion of what had been produced had, at the earliest moment, been seized by the factors of the English traders who resided in the Colony. Devries not having a representative of his interests there at that time,