But his pleadings were in vain. England would not change the laws which were the expression of her settled colonial policy. The planters must adjust themselves to changed conditions no matter how bitter was the experience. Sir William was told to go home to report to the Virginians that they need not kick against the pricks, but that England would be most pleased could they turn from the all-absorbing culture of tobacco to the production of the raw materials she so greatly desired. And Berkeley did return determined to exert every effort to lead the colonists into new prosperity by inducing them to devote a part of their energies to basic commodities. In fact he promised that in seven years he would flood the British market with new Virginia goods.[5-33]
Although he set to work with his accustomed vigor to make good this boast, he met with but scant success. Lack of efficient and skilled labor, high wages, and not very favorable natural conditions, made it impossible for him to compete with the long-established industries of Europe. After a few years all attempts to make silk and potash and naval stores were abandoned, and the planters continued to put their trust in tobacco.
That Berkeley was never persuaded that the Navigation Acts were just or beneficial is shown by his answer to the query of the Lords of Trade in 1671, when they asked him what impediments there were to the colony's trade. "Mighty and destructive," he replied, "by that severe act of Parliament which excludes us from having any commerce with any nation in Europe but our own, so that we cannot add to our plantation any commodity that grows out of it ... for it is not lawful for us to carry a pipe-staff or a bushel of corn to any place in Europe out of the King's dominions. If this were for his Majesty's service or the good of his subjects we should not repine, whatever our sufferings are for it. But on my soul it is the contrary of both."[5-35]
Nor is this the only direct testimony that the colonists were filled with bitterness against the Navigation Acts. In 1673, during the war with Holland, Sir John Knight declared that "the planters there do generally desire a trade with the Dutch and all other nations, and speak openly there that they are in the nature of slaves, so that the hearts of the greatest part of them are taken away from his Majesty and consequently his Majesty's best, greatest and richest plantation is in danger, with the planters' consent, to fall into the enemy's hands, if not timely prevented."[5-36] This is corroborated by the Council itself, in an official letter to the King. "For in this very conjuncture had the people had a distasteful Governor," they wrote, "they would have hazarded the loss of this Country, and the rather because they doe believe their Condicon would not be soe bad under the Dutch in Point of Traffique as it is under the Merchants who now use them hardly, even to extremity."[5-37]