This forthright exposition of official English attitudes reiterated the policy of colonial economic dependence. The wording of the veto--"encourage their _going on_ with the Woolen and other Manufactures" and "a _further_ Prejudice in relation to our shipping" [italics supplied]--shows that the dangers feared by the Board of Trade regarding the establishment of towns had already become a reality and a threat to English economic policy. Victor S. Clark, in _The History of Manufactures_ in _the United States_, points out that the colonists passed so many laws to encourage their own manufactures "that such British intervention as occurred must be regarded rather as indicating the passive disposition of the home government than as defining an administrative policy vigorously carried out."[186] Nevertheless, from 1700 until the Revolution, reports on American manufactures made by royal governors to the Board of Trade demonstrate not only that the Americans were vigorously promoting manufactures but also that they were being evasive and secretive in doing so in the face of official disapproval. The Board of Trade reported in 1733: "It is not improbable that some former governors of our colonies ... may, in breach of their instructions, have given their concurrence to laws, or have connived for many years at the practice of trades prejudicial to the interest of Great Britain...."[187] Governor Belcher of Massachusetts in his report to the Board of Trade complained that "we cannot conceal from your lordships that it is with the greatest difficulty we are able to procure true informations of the trade and manufactures of New England; which will not appear extraordinary when we acquaint your lordship, that the assembly of the Massachusetts Bay had the boldness to summon ... Mr. Jeremiah Dunbar [Surveyor General of his Majesty's woods in North America] before them and pass a severe censure upon him, for having given evidence at the bar of the House of Commons of Great Britain with respect to the trade and manufactures of this province...."[188] After the Port Act of 1704 was disallowed, the Virginians were harder pressed than the northern colonists, who managed to maintain their frowned-upon industries. Ignoring the Virginians' resentment at being limited almost exclusively to the growing of tobacco, additional economic pressures were put upon them. For example, whereas stripped tobacco--the leaves separated from the stalks--had constituted the principal form of exported tobacco, an Act of Parliament was introduced on January 17, 1729, containing clauses prohibiting the importation into England of "Stript Tobacco." John Randolph, Clerk of the Council of Virginia, wrote a letter to Parliament, petitioning the repeal of the clause. By having to export the stalks, he complained, the planters