In 1619 twenty thousand pounds were exported, and in 1622 sixty thousand pounds.

This increasing importation excited the covetousness of the king, as well as the jealousy of the Spanish government, whose West India tobacco had hitherto monopolized the London market.

Directly contrary to the provision of the charter which exempted tobacco from any duty except five per cent., the king in 1619 levied an exaction of one shilling a pound, equal to twenty per cent.

The London Company submitted on condition that the raising of tobacco in England should be prohibited, which was granted.

In 1620 a royal proclamation limited the importation of tobacco from Virginia and the Bermuda Islands to fifty-five thousand pounds, whereupon the whole of the Virginia crop for that year was transported to Flushing and sold in Holland.