Though we may discount the testimony of those who had been partners with Berkeley in his misgovernment, it is clear that he was in no way responsible for the chief cause of poverty in the colony--the Navigation Acts. Prior to 1660 the Virginians carried on an extensive trade with Holland, selling their tobacco to Dutch merchants and taking Dutch manufactured goods in exchange. When the tobacco reached Holland it was "manufactured" and then distributed to other countries. This trade brought prosperity to the colony, for the Dutch paid well for the tobacco and sold their goods cheaply. But the Navigation Acts required that tobacco exported from the colonies must be shipped to England or to her dominions, and that manufactured goods imported must come from England. The result was disastrous. England was not able by herself to consume the entire crop. Nor could the merchants re-export it to the continent because they did not have access to the markets. So the tobacco piled up in the English warehouses, while the price sank lower and lower. The Dutch had given three pence a pound for tobacco, but now the crop was sold at half a penny a pound. Formerly the poor planter who raised a thousand pounds of tobacco each year could count on an income of L12, which was ample for his needs. After the passage of the Navigation Acts he was fortunate if he made forty-five shillings. This was so little that Secretary Ludwell attributed it to nothing but the mercy of God that he had "not fallen into mutiny and confusion." In 1662 Berkeley and others complained that the price of tobacco was so low that it would not bear the charge of freight and customs, give encouragement to the merchants, and subsistence to the planters. As though this were not enough, a series of disasters struck the colony bringing ruin and suffering in their wake. In 1667, when England and Holland were at war, a fleet of five Dutch warships entered Chesapeake Bay and captured the _Elizabeth_, an English frigate of forty-six guns. They then turned on the tobacco fleet and captured twenty vessels. Six years later nine Dutch warships came in and engaged the English in a desperate battle off Lynnhaven Bay while the tobacco ships scurried for shallow water. Unfortunately nine or ten ran aground and were taken.