In 1604 the king had, by a royal commission addressed to "our treasurer of England," arbitrarily raised the duty on tobacco from twopence a pound to six shillings tenpence. He was probably moved to make this surprising change by his antipathy to tobacco; but by increasing the profits of the farmers of customs and monopolists of tobacco, he no doubt contributed to that abandonment of Virginia to tobacco raising which seemed to him so lamentable. The use of Spanish tobacco in England was general before that from Virginia began to take its place. Barnabee Rich says, in 1614: "I have heard it tolde that now very lately there hath bin a cathologue taken of all those new erected houses that have set vppe that trade of selling tobacco in London, ande neare about London, and if a man may beleeue what is confidently reported, there are found to be vpward of 7000 houses that doth liue by that trade." He says such shops were "almost in euery lane and in euery by-corner round about London." The Honestie of this Age, p. 30. [Sidenote: Note 9, page 86.] The MS. records of the Virginia Company and the State papers relating to Virginia in the Public Record Office, London, are the most important authorities on the subjects treated in the text. On the commodities attempted at the outset, Manuscript Book of Instructions, Library of Congress, the first volume of Hening's Statutes, _passim_, and Purchas, pp. 1777-1786, _passim_. On the inferiority of the Indian tobacco, see Strachey, p. 121. [Sidenote: Note 10, page 89.] Peckard's Life of Ferrar supplies many of the particulars in this section. The Records of the Virginia Company and other original authorities do not sustain all of Peckard's statements. The author's view is evidently distorted by biographer's myopia. He often seems to depend on tradition, but in some passages his touch is more sure, and he writes like a man who has documents before him. Arthur Woodnoth's Short Collection of the Most Remarkable Passages from the Originall to the Dissolution of the Virginia Company is of great value. It is a scarce tract, which I met first in the White-Kennett Library, in the rooms of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. It is also in the British Museum, Harvard College, and the Library of Congress. It is to be taken with discrimination, but the view of the inner workings of court intrigue as it affected Virginia is so fresh and detailed that it would be a pity to miss its information. It was printed in 1651. There is a brief sketch of the life of Sandys in Brown's Genesis of the United States, ii, 993. [Sidenote: Note 11, page 90.]