STRAY LEAVES FROM THE WEED 159 



and command you, our Treasurer of Englande, and herebye 

 also warrant and authorise you to give orders to all 

 Customers, Comptrollers, Searchers, Surveyors and other 

 officers of our Fortes, that from and after the six-and- 

 twentieth Day of October next comynge, they shall demand 

 and take to our use, etc., etc., the sum of Sixe shillings and 

 8d. upon every pound weight thereof, over and above the 

 custome of 2d. upon the pound weight usually paid hereto- 

 fore.' The penalties for evading payment were, forfeiture 

 of cargo, ' and such further Penalties and coporal punish- 

 ments as the qualitie of suche so high a Contempt against 

 Our Royal and Expresse Commandmente in this manner 

 published shall deserve.' 



The imposition, equivalent to about thirty shillings of 

 our present money, had a startling effect on the tobacco 

 trade of the country ; but when merchants found out that 

 it was meant to apply only to the tobacco imported 

 from Virginia, they naturally had recourse to other markets, 

 as Spain and Portugal, whence it was brought in at the old 

 rate of twopence on the pound that had satisfied Elizabeth. 

 Agriculturists, too, saw in the change an opportunity for 

 extending the home cultivation and manufacture of tobacco 

 and readily availed themselves of it, particularly in 

 Yorkshire, where all the operations connected therewith 

 were well understood. On the King learning what they 

 were doing, he hastened to promulgate a further edict 

 forbidding husbandmen ' to misuse and misemploy the soyle 

 of this fruitful kingdom,' beginning with the words, 

 ' Whereas we, out of the dislike we have to tobacco.' 

 Thus expressed, his case against the weed is placed in a 

 more intelligible light than that which he had in the first 

 instance thought it expedient to disclose. However absurd 

 his reasoning, his policy succeeded only too well. Besides 



