Other encouragement by Virginia to owners of vessels, built by them, was the exemption of the two shillings export duties per hogshead of tobacco; the exemption from castle duties; the reduction to two pence per gallon on imported liquor from the four pence required of foreign vessels; and the exemption from duties imposed on shipmasters on entering and clearing, and for licenses and bond where necessary. The English government discouraged manufacture in the colonies that would compete with home manufactures, but the building of ships was an exception. England needed ships and granted the colonies the right to build as many as they could. Throughout the whole period of royal government, there were enacted various laws remitting the duties on imports brought in on native ships and remission of tonnage duties. This aroused the resentment of the English shipbuilders, who had endeavored to put a stop to the building of ships of any size in the colonies. They were alarmed, too, at the laws passed in the colonies to encourage shipbuilding and complained that they had been discriminated against. Resolutions were passed by Parliament to investigate such laws framed in the colonies, and a bill, based upon these resolutions was proposed, but never introduced. However, in 1680, Governor Culpeper was ordered to annul the laws exempting Virginia owners of vessels constructed in the colony from duties on exported tobacco and castle duties. The grounds upon which this order was based were (1) the injustice of granting privileges to Virginia ship owners, not enjoyed by the owners of English vessels, trading in Virginia waters; (2) the success of the navigation laws would be impaired by creating a Virginia fleet, able to transport tobacco, without the assistance of English vessels; and (3) owners of English ships might be tempted to order them as belonging to Virginians. Since the Virginia fleet in 1681, was composed of two ships, as mentioned by John Page, in a petition to Lord Culpeper, the English were thought to be unnecessarily alarmed. During the 1660's, following the laws of the General Assembly, a number of Virginia built ships were recorded. There was much shipbuilding activity on the Eastern Shore. The mate of the _Royal Oake_, when caught trading illegally, stated that the owner had another boat in the house of a Mr. Waters, and also had a sloop being built there. About this time, a shipwright agreed to build between May and October, for William Whittington, a sloop of twenty-six feet keel, and breadth in proportion, receiving for his work 4,400 pounds of tobacco. In 1666, John Goddon entered a claim for a vessel of twenty-five tons built for him in Accomack. John Bowdoin built a brigantine which he named _Northampton_.