early experiments
proved successful before the adventurers faced the risk that tobacco
would take over the colony entirely. There is nothing surprising in
this development, for a tobacco plant, unlike a grapevine or an olive
tree, matures within a few months of its planting, and the tobacco
habit at this time was a thing of comparably rapid growth in many parts
of the world. To settlers who had been staked by adventurers ever
insistent upon a prompt return of their capital, or who wondered how
best to procure the means to make payment for the supplies brought in
the next magazine ship, the obvious answer was to plant the land to
tobacco. After doing this, if time and energy remained, they might try
some of Sir Edwin Sandys' ideas--maybe set out a few grapevines or
mulberries, as they had been instructed to do. There was good reason
for the growing fear among the leading adventurers in London that
tobacco might put a blight on all other projects.

More than that, the increasing shipments of tobacco, especially in view
of the still relatively poor quality of the Virginia leaf, gave the
colony a bad name just when its good name was so important to the
promotional efforts of the company. The tobacco habit did not yet have
the respectable associations it would later acquire in the eighteenth
century. Instead, it was associated with tippling or bawdy houses,
where in truth a pipe was most easily had by the contemporary resident
of London. Moral considerations were reinforced by an additional
concern for the public interest. So much of the weed consumed came from
Spain that thoughtful men were inclined to consider how much England
paid out, to the profit of the Spaniard, for a commodity which added
nothing to the well being of the country. Had it not been for the
influence of Virginia and Bermuda adventurers in the House of Commons,
Parliament in 1621 might well have prohibited all importation of
tobacco into England. And in all England there was no more vigorous
opponent of tobacco than the king himself. Indeed, the king had even
written a book on the subject.

The attitude of King James had a most important bearing on another
angle of the problem. Under its charter, the company had been allowed a
seven year exemption from import duties on cargoes brought from
Virginia. When this exemption expired in 1619, the government
immediately imposed a duty that was fixed early in 1620 at 1s. per
pound of tobacco. Though this was on