Despite the insistence of the British Government in this matter, there is abundant evidence to show that the Virginians continued to indulge in direct trade with the continent for many years after the overthrow of the Company. In 1632 Governor Harvey wrote that "our intrudinge neighbours, the Dutch, doe allow us eighteen peance p. pound" for tobacco, while a few months later we find him reporting the attempt of John Constable and others "to defraud his Majesty of his duties by unloading in the Netherlands."[4-35]
With the advent of the English Civil War and throughout the Commonwealth period Virginia enjoyed a large degree of independence and found it possible to trade with the Dutch almost with impunity. Even the strict Berkeley seems to have felt it no disloyalty for the planters to seek foreign markets for their staple while the mother country was torn by the contending armies of King and Parliament. And so the merchantmen of Flushing and Amsterdam pushed their prows into every river and creek in Virginia and Maryland, taking off large quantities of tobacco and giving in return the celebrated manufactured goods of their own country. At Christmas 1648, if we may believe the testimony of the author of _A New Description of Virginia_, there were trading in the colony ten ships from London, two from Bristol, seven from New England and twelve from Holland. In 1655 the statement was made that "there was usually found intruding upon the plantation divers ships, surruptitiously carrying away the growth thereof to foreign ports to the prejudice of this Commonwealth."[4-36]
Thus in the years prior to the Restoration Virginia was never fully subjected to the operation of the British colonial system. When the price of tobacco in the London market fell lower and lower, the planters might and often did find relief by defying the King's commands and trading directly with the Dutch.[4-37] And this benefitted them doubly, for not only did they strike a better bargain with the foreign traders, but every cargo of tobacco diverted from England tended to relieve the market there and restore prices. In fact there can be little doubt that the frequent violations of the trade restrictions of this period alone saved the colony from the poverty and distress of later days and made possible the prosperity enjoyed by the planters.