The effects of the Virginians' favoring tobacco-growing above fishing were also noted by De Vries on a visit to Canada: Besides my vessel [at Newfoundland] there was a small boat of fifty or sixty lasts [110 tons], with six guns, which had come out of the Virginias with tobacco, in order to exchange the tobacco for fish. A rather aggrieved reaction to the tales of abundant natural resources in Virginia is contained in this letter from one Tho. Niccolls to Sir Jo. Worstenholme in London in 1623: If the Company would allow to each man a pound of butter and a portion of cheese weekly, they would find more comfort therein then by all the deer, fish, and fowl [that] is so talked of in England, of which, I can assure you, your poor servants have not had so much as the scent since their coming into the country. To prevent profiteering in Canadian fish the Virginia authorities had set the selling prices: January 3, 1625-6: Proclamation by the Governor and Council of Virginia renewing a former proclamation of August 31, 1623, restraining the excessive rates of commodities--commanding that no person in Virginia, either adventurer or planter, shall vend, utter, barter, or sell any of the commodities following above the prices hereafter mentioned, viz: New Foundland fish, the hundred ... 10 pounds of tobacco; Canada dry fish, the hundred ... 24 pounds of tobacco; Canada wet fish, the hundred.... 30 pounds of tobacco. In one proposed deal of fish for tobacco the owner of the fish got scared off, as recorded in the Minutes of the Council and General Court, 1622-29: Luke Edan, sworn and examined, says that there were sixteen thousand fish offered him by one Corbin at Canada which afterward the said Corbin refused to sell him for it was told him his tobacco was not good, and as the examiner heard, it was Henry Hewat that told him so. A case of special concession for the sale of fish was shown in a ruling of the Virginia Council in 1626: It is ordered that whereas Mr. Weston came up to James City, he shall sell 3,000 of his fish there, which he has promised to sell at reasonable rates. Therefore, in regard the proclamations are not published for the choosing of merchants and factors, it is permitted that such as are desirous to buy any of the said fish he may have leave to deal with Mr. Weston, notwithstanding orders to the contrary. Another dissuading factor in the unsubstantial fishing in Virginia was the threat of Indian attack. The Assembly in 1626 ruled: It is ordered, according to the act of the late General Assembly, that no man go or send abroad either upon fowling, fishing, or otherwise whatsoever without a sufficient plenty of men, well armed and provided of munition, upon penalty of undergoing severe censure of punishment by the Governor and Council.