Even the Heavens
seemed to join with their enemies, for the country was visited by a
terrific hurricane which swept over the plantations, destroying crops
and wrecking houses. These accumulated misfortunes brought such deep
suffering upon the colony that hundreds of families were reduced to
poverty and many were forced into debt and ruin. No wonder that the
commons, finally driven to desperation, should have risen in
insurrection against the Governor and the King.

First among the causes of distress during this unhappy period must be
placed the Navigation Acts. England, in the middle of the 17th century,
was engaged in an unsuccessful contest with Holland for the carrying
trade of the world. The merchantmen of Amsterdam and Flushing found
their way even to Maryland and Virginia, where their low freight rates
and the liberal prices they gave for tobacco, assured them a hearty
welcome. The exports of the colonies to England itself were not
infrequently carried in Dutch bottoms. This was a source of much anxiety
and annoyance to the British government. It seemed unjust that the
American colonies, which had been founded at such tremendous cost,
should now prove as great a source of wealth to Holland as to the mother
country. And it could not but anger the English shippers to find
themselves elbowed by these foreigners in the ports of the Bermudas or
the rivers of Virginia.

In 1651, the British Parliament, thinking it necessary to give their
merchants some protection from this lively competition, passed the first
of the Navigation Acts. Under its provisions no goods of the growth or
manufacture of Asia, America or Africa should be introduced into England
in any but English ships, of which the owner, master and three-fourths
of the sailors were English subjects; and all foreign commodities
imported to England should be conveyed directly thither from the place
of growth or manufacture.[382] This law injured the Virginians by
excluding the Dutch carriers from the tobacco trade with England and
thus causing a sharp rise in freight rates. During the early years of
the Commonwealth period it was frequently avoided, but before 1660 the
English government began to enforce it more strictly.

Nor did the people get relief with the restoration of the monarchy.
Charles II proved more solicitous that Parliament for the welfare of the
English merchants; even more indifferent to the complaints of the
colonists. A new Navigation Act wa