Documenting the American South Logo
Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Act of the Maryland General Assembly concerning tobacco planting
Maryland. General Assembly
June 14, 1666
Volume 01, Pages 117-118

-------------------- page 117 --------------------
[B. P. R. O. Colonial Entry Bk. No. 53. P. 113.]
AN ACT FOR ENCOURAGEMENT OF TRADE.

For as much as Tobacco is the only commodity by which this Province doth at present subsist which by the unlimited freedome of all persons to plant what quantity's and at what tyme they please hath glutted all marketts for divers yeares last past & for that reason is come to that low rate that were the times peaceable & trade open itt would not purchase necessarys for the planters & forasmuch as vast quantity's all ready made must needs ly upon the planters hand & perish upon his acct if wee still continue to plant tobacco as formerly for remedy whereof Be it enacted by Rt. Hon. the Lord Proprietor by & with the consent of the Upper and Lower House of this present Generall Assembly that from and after the first day of February which shall be in this present yeare 1666 [7] till the first of February which shall be in the yeare of our Lord one thousand six hundred and sixty seaven noe tobacco shall be sowen sett planted or any way tended within this Province of Maryland Provided that the Honble Sir William Berkeley and the Assembly of Virginia and Wm. Drummond Governor of the Southward Plantations & the Assembly there doe make the like Acts in there severall & respective Assemblyes prohibiting the sowing setting planting or tending any tobacco in any place within their severall & respective jurisdicc̄ons for the said yeare vizt from the first of February 1666 till the first of February 1667 And for the better & surer execuc̄on of this Act and obteyning the desired end vizt the encouragement of Merchants to trade with us for our necessary apparell Bee it further enacted by the authority and with the assent aforesaid that the Honble Philip Calvert Esqre Henry Courson Esqr Col. Nathaniel Uty Mr Tho. Notley Mr Robert Sly and Major Thomas Brooke or any three or more of them be sent Commrs from the Governor sufficiently empowered to treate and conclude with the Honble Sir William Berkeley and the Assembly in Virginia or with Commrs by the said Sir Wm. Berkeley and the Assembly aforesaid sufficiently from them to be empowered and with the said William Drummond Esqre or Commrs from him & the Assembly of the Colony under his Govermt sufficiently as aforesaid to be empowered upon a totall cessation from sowing setting planting or tending Tobacco in their three Colonies as aforesaid and of the meanes to see the said Treaty and Conclusion for a cessac̄on put into full and certaine execuc̄on.

-------------------- page 118 --------------------

And be itt further Enacted by the authority and assent aforesaid that whatsoever the said Philip Calvert Henry Coursey Nathaniell Utye Thomas Notley Robert Sly and Thos. Brooke or any three or more of them shall agree upon with the Commissioners to be impowered by the Honble Sir Wm. Berkeley Wm. Drummond Esqre & the respective Assemblyes tending only to the effectual execuc̄on of the cessac̄on from planting tobacco in the yeare aforesaid shall oblige all persons in this Province as fully as if the same had been particulerly distinctly and clearly in express words conteyned in this Act.

———

Mem̄. The lawes above written past under the Great Seale of this Province the fourteenth day of June 1666.

PHILIP CALVERT
Chancr
[of Maryland.]