sel [at Newfoundland] there was a small boat of fifty
or sixty lasts [110 tons], with six guns, which had come out of the
Virginias with tobacco, in order to exchange the tobacco for fish.

A rather aggrieved reaction to the tales of abundant natural resources
in Virginia is contained in this letter from one Tho. Niccolls to Sir
Jo. Worstenholme in London in 1623:

If the Company would allow to each man a pound of butter and a
portion of cheese weekly, they would find more comfort therein then
by all the deer, fish, and fowl [that] is so talked of in England,
of which, I can assure you, your poor servants have not had so much
as the scent since their coming into the country.

To prevent profiteering in Canadian fish the Virginia authorities had
set the selling prices:

January 3, 1625-6: Proclamation by the Governor and Council of
Virginia renewing a former proclamation of August 31, 1623,
restraining the excessive rates of commodities--commanding that no
person in Virginia, either adventurer or planter, shall vend,
utter, barter, or sell any of the commodities following above the
prices hereafter mentioned, viz: New Foundland fish, the hundred
... 10 pounds of tobacco; Canada dry fish, the hundred ... 24
pounds of tobacco; Canada wet fish, the hundred.... 30 pounds of
tobacco.

In one proposed deal of fish for tobacco the owner of the fish got
scared off, as recorded in the Minutes of the Council and General
Court, 1622-29:

Luke Edan, sworn and examined, says that there were sixteen
thousand fish offered him by one Corbin at Canada which afterward
the said Corbin refused to sell him for it was told him his tobacco
was not good, and as the examiner heard, it was Henry Hewat that
told him so.

A case of special concession for the sale of fish was shown in a ruling
of the Virginia Council in 1626:

It is ordered that whereas Mr. Weston came up to James City, he
shall sell 3,000 of his fish there, which he has promised to sell
at reasonable rates. Therefore, in regard the proclamations are not
published for the choosing of merchants and factors, it is
permitted that such as are desirous to buy any of the said fish he
may have leave to deal with Mr. Weston, notwithstanding orders to
the contrary.

Another dissuading factor in the unsubstantial fishing in Virginia was
the threat of Indian attack. The A