46 Assembly Proceedings, April — May 1666.

U. H.
Journal
1659-98

much too little that they have in a manner forced the King by
their Clamours to a War with the Dutch to make room for
them to trade your second reason had been of some weight,
but that convincing Argument hath given You sufficient Secu-
rity You shall never want Traders, or Shipping if You have a
Commodity worth fetching But to your second reason We
further say It is not the Shipping's barely coming hither that
We are to wish for but their Importation of Goods to Clothe
Us & if We take fifty thous^d hh^ds tob^o. out of the Trade as by
not planting it for one Year We shall make it valuable &
worth the adventuring Goods hither to purchase it and by
Consequence have Clothing & necessarys for it which if We
persist to keep the Markett glutted We shall never have & if
We have necessarys for this & the next Years Crop now ready
to be planted what need We further desire shipping than to
carry it away & so much will undoubtedly be sent by those
whose Subsistence is by the trade of Tobacco when they know
before hand they can have none the next Year following if

p. 112

Merchants trading this Way do settle their Trade in other parts
it will be no Calamity since England can afford others that are
not acquainted with the ways of grinding the face of the poor
used by some now, which hard usage hath reduced already the
poorest Sort of People of this Province to a Condition little
better than that pagan & salvage manner of living which You
seem to fear from a Cessation.
3 The third Reason is founded upon stealing his Majesty's
Customs by Seamen & were not worth the Answering, but
that perhaps some Men might think there is more weight in it
to sway a Man's Judgm^t against a Cessation from planting
Tobacco for a Year than in truth it doth, Wherefore We will
give You not Grant You that Seamen will not come for any
other Commodity but Tobacco, & therefore Assure you that
We will not plant so much tobacco or so long till it be worth
nothing to them or Us, & We do Conceive the Lower House
cannot in prudence think it fit to have the Province plant
Tobacco merely to have the Seaman's Company even now
when the Planter gets nothing for it In short our design is to
advance the price of Tobacco to make it worth planting &
fetching & that Yourselves say will invite the Seamen when
there is Tobacco & when there is none We need him not
4. But whither shall the Freemen go? Not to Virginia be-
cause there is a Cessation nor to the other American Planta-
tions because Yourselves say their Commoditys are as Con-
temptible as Tobacco, & We have demonstrated that no pru-
dent man will make that perishable Drug Tobi in these parts
therefore he must of necessity stay here & if permitted to
plant Tobacco till it will not supply his Wants having nothing
to lose will at last rob others that are better furnished