The Trial of Tobacco 33 



for the marriage of the Prince of Wales to the Spanish 

 Infanta were then in progress) and his hatred of 

 Raleigh, the trade of whose colony this measure 

 crippled severely, the Act increased the duty on 

 Virginian tobacco only. Portuguese and Spanish 

 tobacco continued to be imported under the old tax 

 of 2d. a pound. Thus James satisfied his hatred of 

 tobacco and of Raleigh by one measure. Against 

 tobacco he was totally unsuccessful, for, failing Vir- 

 ginian, Spanish tobacco was smoked in England, and 

 the plant itself cultivated in this country. 



Both these evasions of the prohibitive duty received 

 legislative attention, though no direct prohibition of 

 tobacco was ever made in England as on the Con- 

 tinent. The increasing cultivation of tobacco in 

 England led James, in 1621, to promulgate a measure 

 forbidding the planting of tobacco in this country : 

 ' Whereas We out of the dislike We have of tobacco,' 

 he prohibited the cultivation of the plant, as to do so 

 was to ' misuse and misemploy the soil of this fruitful 

 Kingdom.' 



In the debate on this Bill in the House of 

 Commons, Sir Edward Sandys, M.P. for Pontefract, 

 protested against the importation of tobacco from 

 Spain at the old duty of 2d. a pound. ' There was 

 wont,' he said, ' to come out of Spain a great mass 

 of money to the value of ;^ 100,000 per annum for 

 our cloths and other merchandises ; and now we have 

 from thence for all our cloths and merchandises 

 nothing but tobacco ; nay, that will not pay for all 

 the tobacco we have from thence, but they have more 

 from us in money every year ;^20,ooo ; so there goes 



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