f the plant, after all freight charges had been met,
could clear some L30 or L35, a very tidy sum indeed for those days. It
was the discovery that Virginia could produce tobacco of excellent
quality that accounts for the heavy migration in the years from 1618 to
1623. In fact, so rich were the returns that certain persons came to the
colony, not with the intention of making it their permanent residence,
but of enriching themselves "by a cropp of Tobacco," and then returning
to England to enjoy the proceeds.[4-18]

But this state of affairs was of necessity temporary. Very soon the
increasing size of the annual crop began to tell upon the price, and in
1623 Sir Nathaniel Rich declared that he had bought large quantities of
tobacco at two shillings a pound.[4-19] This gentleman felt that it
would be just to the planters were they to receive two shillings and
four pence for the best varieties, and sixteen pence for the "second
sort." In the same year Governor Wyatt and his Council, in a letter to
the Virginia Company, placed the valuation of tobacco at eighteen pence
a pound.[4-20] Three years later, however, the Governor wrote the Privy
Council advising the establishment in Virginia of a "magazine" or
entrepot, where the merchants should be compelled to take the tobacco at
three shillings a pound.[4-21] This proposal did not seem reasonable to
the King, and when Sir George Yeardley came over as Governor for the
second time he was instructed to see to it that "the merchant be not
constrained to take tobacco at 3. P. Pound in exchange for his wares,"
and to permit him to "make his own bargain."[4-22]

Apparently not discouraged by this rebuff, in 1628 the Governor, Council
and Burgesses petitioned the King, who once more was planning to take
the trade into his own hands, to grant them "for their tobacco delivered
in the colony three shillings and six pence per pound, and in England,
four shillings."[4-23] This valuation undoubtedly was far in advance of
the current prices, and King Charles, considering it unreasonable would
not come to terms with the planters. In fact, it appears that for some
years the price of tobacco had been declining rapidly. In May, 1630, Sir
John Harvey wrote the Privy Council that the merchants had bought the
last crop with their commodities at less than a penny per pound,[4-24]
and two years later, in a statement sent the Virginia Commissioners, he
claimed that the price still remained at that figu