These letters introduced another period of activity at Stockholm on behalf of the colony. In May Kramer made an inventory of the stores at Gothenburg, which were ready to be shipped, and in June several expenses are recorded in connection with preparations for a journey. About the same time Kramer had the _Gyllene Haj_ painted, rigged and thoroughly repaired. Disappointment, however, was again in store for those interested in New Sweden. The journey was abandoned, and an interval of inactivity again ensued. Nothing more was done the following winter, spring and summer. In the autumn of 1653 new interest was manifested in the colony and the American trade, but this belongs to a later chapter. VIII. During this decade (1643–1654) the company engaged in the trade of salt and copper besides its usual beaver and tobacco traffic. The copper was sold in Holland and the salt in Finland. The beaver trade was comparatively small, and only one large cargo of skins, that of 1648, was shipped to Sweden from the colony. The consumption of tobacco increased enormously in Sweden from 1638 to 1643, and smuggling was a profitable business. The ordinances of the government were disregarded, and tobacco “in large quantities was secretly brought into the country by sea and land.” In the beginning of 1643 conditions were going from bad to worse. In April the government published a new ordinance. Tobacco imported by others than the company would be confiscated and a fine of four öre silver money per lb. would be imposed on the owner of the tobacco or on “the skipper on whose ship the tobacco was found,” in case the owner could not be discovered. Accordingly the New Sweden Company continued to be the sole importer and was to be the exclusive distributor of tobacco in the kingdom directly or through agents. In June, 1643, a tobacco company was organized which was given exclusive right for six years to sell tobacco in any part of Sweden or its dependencies. During these years the New Sweden Company was to sell its tobacco to the Tobacco Company, which on the other hand promised to buy all its supplies from the former concern. The contract further stipulated that the Tobacco Company was to supply every locality of the kingdom and to employ residing burghers in the different cities as agents, as far as these could be found, except at Kopparberget, where it had a right to station its own salesmen and erect its own public stores. All kinds of tobacco were included under the contract; but the New Sweden Company retained the privilege of selling powdered tobacco or snuff to apothecaries, who in turn could sell it to the public.