tobacco from Virginia to the northern settlements. The 

 fact that Great Britain and the Dutch were at war was 

 hardly enough reason for some maritime traders to re- 

 strict their established commerce. 



A Captain John Manning of Hartford, for instance, 

 carried 71 hogsheads of Virginia leaf on two deliveries 

 to the Dutch at Manhattan Island. He seems to have 

 been doing very well in his small, coastwise trade. Some- 

 one turned him in. Thereupon he was tried by the Gen- 

 eral Court in the month the First Dutch War ended, 

 April 1654, and found guilty of trading with the enemy. 

 That was the year in which the Dutch evacuated their 

 Hartford settlement and the fort. 



The normal expansion of settlements within the colony 

 stimulated tobacco production. Leaf of varying quality 

 was a small annual crop in almost every village. Gover- 

 nor John Winthrop (the younger) reported in 1660 that 

 "Some have had good cropes, but [tobacco] is not yet so 

 generally planted as to make a trade of it." In 1662, partly 

 as an encouragement to local farming, but as much out of 

 dislike of anything "foreign," a high duty was placed on 

 imported tobacco: 25 shillings per hogshead or two 

 pence per pound. 



Leaf of domestic growth intended for export was then 

 under British colonial regulations to be shipped first to 

 English ports. This was generally regarded as unjust 

 throughout the colonies. (Calculated defiance of this re- 

 striction, particularly by New England merchantmen, 

 was an early indication of that spirit of independence 

 which was to harden into open rebellion.) A further proof 

 of agricultural expansion came in 1680 when, in reply to 

 a query from official London, it was stated, "We have no 

 need of Virginia trade, most people planting so much 

 Tabacco." 



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