a half penny a pound, this order, had it
been put into operation, would have quadrupled the value of the
quit-rents, and increased materially the burdens of the planters. The
Burgesses, in alarm, petitioned the Governor to allow the old
arrangement to continue, declaring that the lack of specie made it
impossible to comply with the King's order. And they refused to repeal
the law of March, 1662.

Displeased at their obstinacy, the King, in August, 1686, nullified the
law by proclamation. "Being now informed," he declared, "that several
persons goe about to impede our Service ... by imposing bad tobacco upon
our collectors at the rate of 2d per llb, under pretence of an Act of
Assembly of March 30, 1662, ... Wee have thought fit to Repeal the said
Act."[982]

Even then the Burgesses resisted. At the session of 1686 they petitioned
on behalf of all the freeholders of the colony that the quit-rents
should be paid as formerly. To make payment in specie, they declared,
would not only be ruinous, but utterly impossible.[983] So angered were
they and so determined not to obey, that Effingham found it expedient to
consent to a compromise. It was agreed that the tax should be collected
in tobacco as before, but at the rate of one penny per pound, which, as
Effingham said, was not ad valorum. Thus the only result of this long
quarrel was to double the value of the quit-rents, and to add greatly to
the burdens of the impoverished and discontented people.[984]

Even more bitter was the contest over the so-called Bill of Ports. This
measure was designed to remedy the scattered mode of living in Virginia,
by appointing certain places as ports of landing and shipment, and
confining to them all foreign trade. Throughout the seventeenth century
almost all shipping was done from private wharves. The country was so
interspersed with rivers, inlets and creeks, deep enough to float the
largest vessels, that ports were entirely unnecessary. Each planter
dealt directly with the merchants, receiving English manufactured goods
almost at his front door, and lading the ships with tobacco from his own
warehouse. This system, so natural and advantageous, seemed to the
English Kings, and even to the colonists, a sign of unhealthful
conditions. More than once attempts had been made to force the people
to build towns and to discontinue the desultory plantation trade.

In 1679, Culpeper was ordered to propose a law in the Assembly requiring
the er