Thus threatened, the Burgesses finally yielded, and the bill became law. But they insisted upon adding to it two provisos: that the former export duty upon tobacco be repealed, and that the exemption of Virginia ship owners from the payment of the tax, which had been a provision of the former law, should be continued.[907] When some months later the matter came before the Committee of Trade and Plantations, their Lordships expressed much dissatisfaction at these amendments, declaring that the bill should have passed "in Terminis". Since, however, the first proviso in no way changed the sense of the act, and had been added only to prevent a double imposition, they recommended that it should be continued. But the second was declared null and void by order of the King, as "irregular and unfit to be allowed of".[908] Lord Culpeper, immediately after the dismissal of the Assembly made ready to return to England. August 3, 1680, he read to the Council an order from the King granting him permission to leave the colony, and a few days later he set sail in _The James_.[909] The government was again left in the hands of the infirm Chicheley.[910] Culpeper, upon his arrival in England, told the King that all was well in the colony, that the old contentions had been forgotten, and the people were happy and prosperous. But this favorable report, which was made by the Governor to palliate his desertion of his post, was far from being true. There was, as he well knew, a deep-seated cause of discontent in Virginia, that threatened constantly to drive the people again into mutiny and disorder. This was the continued low price of tobacco. In the years which had elapsed since Bacon's Rebellion, the people, despite their bitter quarrels, had produced several large crops, and the English market was again glutted. "What doth quite overwhelm both us and Maryland," complained the colonists, "is the extreme low price of our only commodity ... and consequently our vast poverty and infinite necessity."[911] The Burgesses, in 1682, spoke of the worthlessness of tobacco as an "ineffable Calamity". "Wee are," they said, "noe wayes able to force a miserable subsistance from the same.... If force of penne, witt, or words Could truely represent (our condition) as it is, the sad resentments would force blood from any Christian Loyall Subjects heart."[912] Some months later the Council wrote, "The people of Virginia are generally, some few excepted, extremely poor, ... not being able to provide against the pressing necessities of their families."[913] That the Privy Council was aware, as early as October, 1681, that these conditions might lead to another insurrection, is attested by a letter of the Committee of Trade and Plantations to Lord Culpeper. "We are informed," they wrote, "that Virginia is in great danger of disturbance ... by reason of the extreme poverty of the People, occasioned by the low price of tobacco which, tis feared may