But King James had not yet done with tobacco. A monarch of his remarkable idiosyncrasy, as displayed in his creation of a new and lucrative business for the sale of distinguished titles and high offices of State, where he himself possessed the sole monopoly, would naturally see his way to a further stroke of ‘good business’ in the tobacco market. Accordingly, we are not surprised to learn that, viewing with a jealous eye the flourishing state of the new industry, the idea occurred to him that the State coffers might be replenished by taking a still deeper interest in the weed. Hence the issue of a royal proclamation to his loving subjects that they were forbidden to deal in tobacco unless they purchased Royal Letters Patent granting them a license to do so. These could only be procured, on payment of a yearly sum, from the persons who farmed from the King the right to enforce and collect the tax. In the _Stafford Letters_, compiled by Gerrard, relating to the collection of the new tax, it is stated that ‘some towns have yielded twenty marks, £10, £5, £6, fine and rent; none goes under. I hear that Plymouth hath yielded £100 and as much yearly rent.… The tobacco licences go on apace; they yield a good fine, and a constant yearly rent.…’ In some instances a life-lease to deal in tobacco was granted on payment of a lump sum. As to the King’s method of dealing with State affairs of the kind, let Sir Anthony Weldon speak from personal knowledge. He says of the King that ‘he was so crafty and cunning in petty things, as the circumventing any great man. He had a trick of cousen (cozen) himself with bargains under hand, by taking £1,000 or £10,000 as a bribe, when (at the same time) his Counsel was treating with his Customers to raise them to so much more yearly; this went into his Privy purse; wherein he thought he had over-reached the Lords, but consented himself; but would as easily break the bargain upon the next offer, saying he was mistaken and deceived, and therefore no reason he should keep the bargain. This was often the case with the Farmers of the Customs.’ There is a document in the State Archives which throws a curious side-light on the King’s ideas of statecraft. The settlers in Guiana had become tobacco-planters, and required a trade-charter with this country. A charter was granted them, in which a clause was inserted to the effect that one-tenth of the tobacco grown there should go to the King. Thus, in a roundabout way, the King became a tobacco merchant.