John Pory Quotes
All our riches for the present do consist in Tobacco.
John Pory, ~1570-1635, Secretary of the Colony of Virginia Letter to the Virginia Company, September 30, 1619
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
He was asking for permission to issue more paper currency.
This historical quotation enables us to date the importation of slaves into Massachusetts to as early as 1638. It also shows us that even though the Spanish had enslaved Negroes from Africa, when English ships raided Spanish ships and seized their booty, they considered the slaves as property and took them to then sell for the money. Had they had a different point of view, they might have freed the Back slaves who had been captured by their enemy, the Spanish. But they did not and money and money was the major motivation.
This was an expression of concern from the merchants of Rhode Island to England regarding curtailing aspects of the slave trade. Ironically, this Remonstrance is one of the first documents objecting to the management of America’s affairs by England when America had no representation. Therefore it played a part in the process which culminated in the American Revolution and freedom from England. And yet the subject was not freedom at all but just the opposite—the prerogative of maintaining the slave trade. Note that the appeal to the Board of Trade was not couched in ethical or political argument but as a mercantile argument—Rhode Islander’s would import less British goods.
The sense of the word affair is the general purpose, and Smith was referring to the fact when he investigated any proposed or implemented public scheme or law, there was an objective of someone obtaining money as a consequence. As journalists say in covering politics, “follow the money.”
This was one of the first and is considered the best of the Colonial arguments against taxation without representation. The argument here about exports also affected other commodities—see {636866}. Despite this, Dulany is not well known in American history because when the Revolution finally came he was a loyalist.
