Gooch claimed that the law in operation benefited the poor. It was the rich man with his slave labor who was responsible for most of the "trash" which the inspectors burnt. The small farmer who planted, tended, and cured his own tobacco produced the best.[36] In fact, he added, "the greatest encouragement is given to the common people to make tobacco that could be thought of, for ... they take as many notes for it as they please, i. e. notes for fifty or a hundred pounds ... [which] will be accepted as payment at any store or shop." In other words, it gave them a far more convenient currency than their bulky tobacco. More convincing to the small farmer than these arguments was the rise in the price of tobacco which followed the passage of the act. But it must have been obvious to thoughtful men that no regulation of the tobacco trade could better the condition of the poor man so long as he had to compete with slave labor. It was slavery which created a trash far more harmful than poor tobacco--poor white trash. Gooch's success in securing the King's assent to the tobacco law was matched by his success in persuading the Assembly to assist with men and money in an expedition against New Granada on the northern coast of South America. In May, 1740, an act was passed to impress men, and in a few weeks about four hundred had been raised. A ragged, motley crowd they must have been, for no one was taken who had any lawful occupation or who had a right to vote.[37] But the officers were from the best Virginia families, among them Lawrence Washington, half-brother of George Washington. Later the Assembly voted L5,000 to cover the cost of feeding and transporting the troops as far as Jamaica, where they were to join the forces sent out from England. Former Governor Spotswood had been appointed to lead the colonials, but when he died before the ships sailed, Governor Gooch, leaving the government in the hands of the senior Councillor, Commissary Blair, took over the command. The attack on Cartagena proved a failure. The British ships could not get near enough to shell the town. When the troops tried to storm the walls the ladders proved too short, and they were repulsed with heavy losses. Gooch himself was wounded. Gooch was knighted in 1746, and made a major general in the British army. He seems never to have recovered fully from his wound, and from an illness contracted during the New Granada campaign. Complaining that he had grown old and infirm, he asked the King for permission to "go home" to recover his health. To the universal regret of the people of Virginia, he left for England in the summer of 1749. He died December 17, in London.