508 Proceedings of the Council of Maryland, 1661-1675.

P. R'. O.

Colonia
Papers. Vol
XVIII, No,
144.

to all, that Know those parts that such as are industrious and
frugall, live in great plenty in compare to the husbandmen of
England, of the same rank, and divers of them grow from
nothing to great estates, and the reason is cleare for a painfull
and able man will in a Summer make his four hogsheads of
Tobacco which at the rate as it now is will produce in England
fourteen or fifteen pound which will buy him cloathes and
another servant cleare, besides which he will plant come
enough to find himselfe, and to sell for four or five pound
more, and reare a stock of Cattle &c. And therefore as for
their calculacon of two hundred thousand pound sent thither in
goods &c by w^ch those Gentlemen would inferre the pittifull
Income the planter hath for his labour he believes there is both
a mistake in the Calculacons, and a non sequitur in the infer-
ence, and that if the Merchants Warehouses here should be
searched a little afore new Tobacco come home it would be
found that the liberty of Planting hath not swelled the quantity
so much above the consumption as those Gentlemen alleadg.
Thirdly he thinks he hath reason to doubt that the Petition
from Virginia for this stint was a designe, either to cause some
ill reflections upon him and Maryland, as an obstruction to a
pretended publique good, or else to putt a notable disadvan-
tage upon Maryland by proposing that which if not consented
to might produce the first, and if consented to would certainly
produce the second, and his reason is the cause if their
designe had been only to lessen the quantity of Tobacco as is
pretended they would have embraced what was proffered by
the Assembly in Maryland, and himselfe since, abundantly
sufficed to that end, For as soone as the Assembly in Maryland
understood from him that upon a former Petition about two
yeares since, his Majesty in Councell by the above mentioned
order of the 29^th June 1662. was graciously pleased to recom-
mend to both Colonies the considering of some way for lessen-
ing the great quantity of Tobacco the Assembly in Maryland
proffered to concur with Virginia to a totall cession from plant-
ing any Tobacco at all in either Colony every third yeare
which would have been a way free from all exceptions of
inequality and most effectuall to the end intended, and at his
last meeting with those Gentlemen he proposed it as a way he
was ready to concurre to, but it was not accepted. Then for
their owne way of a stint it was also proffered to concure to it,
so it were not to the notable prejudice, and disadvantage of
Maryland, that is so as there were an allowance of twenty
dayes to Maryland, to plant Tobacco after the stint days in
Virginia, to balance the difference of the climate. There being
above 3 degrees of northerly latitude distance betwixt the
northern parts of Maryland and the southern parts of Virginia,