106 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



tobacco we have from thence, but they have more from 

 us in money every year, £20,000 ; so there goes out of 

 this kingdom as good as £120,000 for tobacco every 

 year."* 



Certainly the sapient James I. had done his best by 

 pen and penalty to stop the pipes of his southern 

 subjects. He left no small tyranny untried by which 

 he might hinder others of an enjoyment he could 

 not share. The petty meddlings of this wretched 

 sovereign with the minor liberties of the subjects he 

 unfortunately ruled, increased to a tyranny which, 

 bequeathed as a heir-loom to his son, brought him to 

 ~tlie scaffold. James was " little " in everything. He 

 could take no enlarged view of life, or that political 

 economy which regulates and balances for the good of 

 all, even the follies or extravagancies of the few. 

 Hence he deprived the country of a large revenue, 

 crushed and repressed the fair trade, and indulged 

 himself in fines, and others in monopolies of the plant, 

 making restrictions which led to evasion and dis- 

 honesty, and granting power of selling only to those 

 who could pay exorbitant fines. Garrard in the Stafford 

 Letters, vol 1. notes in 1G83 the Life-leases for selling 

 tobacco; as being £15 fine, and as much rent by the 

 year. " Some towns have yielded 20 marks, £10, £5, 

 and £6 fine and rent, none goes under ; and three or 

 four allowed in great market-towns and thoroughfares. 

 I hear Plymouth hath yielded £100, and as much 



* Pari. Hid. vol. i. p. 1195. 



