Whereas We (by the advice of Our Commissioners for Our Revenue) have
resolved to import a quantity of Spanish Tobacco (not exceeding
fifty thousand weight in any one yeere) and utterly to prohibite the
importation of any other forreine Tobacco, which is not of the growth
of Our owne Plantations, and to prohibite also the planting of all
Tobacco within these Our Realmes of England and Ireland, and Islands
thereto belonging or adjacent, As by Our Proclamation, dated the
seventeenth day of February last (for the reasons therein expressed)
it doth at large appeare: Now, because Wee are informed, that it will
much conduce to Our Service, and the setling of that businesse, for the
preventing of the stealing in of all forreine Tobacco, and discovery
of the offendours, and for the clearing of all others, who are not
offendors, from future trouble, that all the Tobacco of the growth of
Our plantations already imported, shal be sealed by Our Commissioners
to that purpose appointed, aswell as that which shal be hereafter
imported, in such sort as by our sayd Proclamation is already directed,
That so the Tobacco of Our Plantations may bee distinguished from the
forreine Tobacco, and the Tobacco planted within these Our Realmes,
which are prohibited: Our will and command therfore is, and We doe
hereby declare et publish Our Royall pleasure to be, That Our said
Commissioners appointed by Us for this Service, shal with al cõvenient
speed, Seale all the Tobacco of the growth of Our said Plantations
already imported in such sort, as they are directed to Seale that which
shall be hereafter imported.
And if any person whatsoever, having any such Tobacco, of the growth
of Our said Plantations, or any of them, which shall refuse to have
the same Sealed, or which shall not offer the same to be Sealed, as
aforesayd, and the same shall hereafter, at any time after one moneth,
from the date hereof, be discovered, that the same shall bee taken and
reputed for forreine Tobacco, or for Tobacco of the growth of these Our
Realmes, which hath been prohibited, and which they durst not avow the
keeping of, and as such Prohibited Tobacco shal be taken, and seized as
other prohibited Tobacco, according to the Tenor and true meaning of
Our said former Proclamation, whereof Wee will, that every person, whom
it may concerne, do take notice at their perill.
Given at Our Court at White-Hall, the thirtieth day of March, in the
third yeere of Our Reigne of Great Britaine, France and Ireland.