in Virginia. William
Claiborne, another of Harvey's enemies on the Council, besides a large
estate, had a royal commission and English backers for his powerful
trading company.

Harvey made every effort to reconcile the differences which arose
between him and the Council members, and on December 20, 1631, all
signed an agreement promising to work in harmony and to mend their
discontent.

Fortified by this agreement, Harvey went forward with his efforts to put
Virginia's agricultural economy on a sound basis. The principal problem
was to force the planters to diversify. Many tears are shed for the
poverty of the planters of Virginia, and their customary indebtedness to
English creditors is usually cited as proof of their poverty. But this
"poverty" was not based on the inability of the planter to raise enough
food to support himself and his family, but on the fluctuations of the
market price of the crop--tobacco--to which he had devoted most of his
energies as a speculative venture. Strange as it may seem, the planter
had to be forced to raise enough food for his own support, so avid was
his desire for quick tobacco profits.

Governor Harvey's Assembly of February 1632 directed that every man
working in the ground should plant and tend at least two acres of corn
per head, on penalty of forfeiture of his entire crop of tobacco. Harvey
hoped to make Virginia "the granarie to his Majesty's Empire," as Sicily
had been to Rome. Another act allowed corn to be sold for as high a
price as could be obtained, contrary to the usual European and colonial
habit of fixing prices on basic commodities used by the people. The
reason given for this freedom from price fixing was that the precedents
of other countries did not apply to America, "for none are so poore
heere, as that they may not have as much corne, as they will plant,
havinge land enough."

The Assembly of 1632 did, however, fix a price on tobacco, requiring
that it not be sold at less than six pence per pound, a law they went to
great pains to justify to the King. Tobacco was Virginia's primary
economic interest, and the Virginians were willing to go to any lengths
to advance that interest. They urged the King not to place any
impediment to their "free trade," or right to sell their tobacco
wherever they could, and mentioned that they had already constructed
several barques and had begun trading with the Dutch plantation on
Hudson's River. Governor Harvey asked why the