By the King a proclamation concerning tobacco.

By the King a proclamation concerning tobacco.

Table of contents

§

§

[Page]

DIEV · ET · MON · DROIT

HONI ❀ SOIT ❀ QVI ❀ MAL ❀ Y ❀ PENSE

❧By the King.
❧A Proclamation concerning Tobacco.

HAving been heretofore informed, that thorow the immoderate taking of Tobacco, provoking the takers thereof to excessive Drinking and other inconveniences, the health of many of Our Subjects had been much impaired, which had the rather been occasioned for that no restraint had been made of the number, nor regard had of the quality of those that sold Tobacco by Retail but persons of the meanest condition had promiscuously used to Retail the same, keeping no order or assize therein: Whereupon We out of Our Princely care, to represse all such excesses, and to prevent such future inconveniences as might occur thereby, did by the advice of the Lords and others of Our Privy Councell, resolve to regulate the ungoverned Selling and Retailing of Tobacco, and to reduce the same into some good order; and that none but men of sufficiency, and such as should bring certificate of their meetnesse, should from thenceforth be permitted to sell or utter Tobacco by Retail, and those onely in certain fit places, and to a certain number in every such place, which places and number We did by the like advice of the Lords, and others of Our Privie Councell, appoint accordingly: And afterwards by Our Proclamation, dated the thirteenth day of March, in the ninth yeer of Our Reign, for the reasons therein expressed We did straitly charge and command, that none should from thenceforth presume to sell or utter Tobacco by Retail, untill they should have obtained Our Licence in that behalf.

In conformity whereunto, divers of Our loving Subjects have since taken severall and respective Licences under Our great Seal of England, to sell and utter forrain Tobacco by Retail, in such respective Cities, Towns, and places, as in the same Licences are expressed, rendring to Us, Our Heirs and Successors, such Rents as in and by Our said Licences are respectively reserved in that behalf: By which means not onely the afore mentioned excesses [Page] have in some good measure been repressed, and many inconveniences prevented, but also some small addition and improvement hath been made to Our Revenue.

But notwithstanding the Premisses, divers ill affected persons, endeavouring for some small advantage to themselves, to bring the Retailing of Tobacco to that confused and ungoverned liberty it had before, have in contempt of Our said Proclamation presumed without Our Licence to vent and utter Tobacco by Retail, as well in London, and the parts adjacent, as in divers other Cities, Towns, and places of this Our Realm, thereby discouraging, and in some sort disabling Our said Subjects, who have taken Our Licences, as aforesaid, to pay their Rents thereon reserved, and likewise dis▪heartning others (that is to say) some from suing forth the Licences for which they have respectively contracted, others from contracting with Our Agents appointed in that behalf; and the better to colour their practises, have spread abroad, especially within Our City of London, and the parts adjacent, false reports and rumours, as if We intended to desist from Our aforesaid course of reformation: which their practises and bold attempts We have just cause to take in ill part, and not to suffer the same to passe unpunished.

Yet because some of Our Subjects, through the false reports and rumours so spread abroad, as aforesaid, may make some doubt of Our Royall intention in the Premisses, therefore We have thought meet hereby to declare and publish to all Our people, that We will not leave unfinished so great a work begun with such advice and care, and so much tending to their health and welfare, neither will We suffer Our Revenue in any part thereof by the wilfull opposition of some few refractory persons to be impaired.

And therefore We do hereby straitly charge and command all Our loving Subjectts, that none of them do from henceforth presume directly or indirectly, to sell, utter, or deliver any Tobacco by Retail, in any place or places within Our said Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Barwick, or any of them, without Our speciall Licence under Our great Seal of England, to be obtained in that behalf.

And We do likewise will and command all Pedlers who wander up and down, not making their constant abode in any one place, and all and every other Interloper or Interlopers whatsoever, that none of them do from henceforth directly or indirectly, sell, utter, or deliver any Tobacco by Retail, or under colour or pretext of giving Tobacco, do by themselves, or any other, take or receive any recompence for the same.

And whereas divers of Our Subjects, who are licensed to retail Tobacco in their own houses onely, do notwithstanding retail Tobacco in Fairs and Markets abroad, to the prejudice of such persons as are licensed to sell Tobacco in those places, Our will and pleasure is, and We do hereby straitly charge and command that from henceforth they and every of them do forbear to sell, utter, or deliver Tobacco by Retail, in any other places then according to the purport and true meaning of their respective Licences under Our great Seal.

And whereas We are informed that much English Tobacco, which through the coldnesse of the climate and unaptnesse of the soil not coming to perfect maturity, is altogether unwholsome to be taken, and other Tobacco adulterate and mixed with rotten fruits and other corrupt ingredients is dayly sold and uttered to Our people; We do hereby charge and [Page] straitly command, that no person whatsoever within Our said Kingdom of England and Ireland, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Barwick, or any of them, do from henceforth presume to buy, sell, or utter, directly or indirectly, any Tobacco of the growth of Our Kingdoms of England and Ireland, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Barwick, Islands of Jersey, Garnsey, and Man, or any of them, or any mixed or adulterate Tobacco whatsoever: And the better to prevent the great abuse offered and done to Our loving Subjects in the sale of English Tobacco, We do also straitly charge and command that no person whatsoever do at any time hereafter plant, or cause to be planted, any Tobacco within Our Kingdoms of England and Ireland, or either of them, or within Our Dominion of Wales, or Town of Barwick, or within Our Islands of Jersey, Garnsey and Man, or any of them, and that all Tobacco already planted, and now growing there, be presently displanted and utterly destroyed.

And to the end the doing hereof be not in any wise omitted or neglected, We do charge and command all Constables, Tithingmen, Headboroughs, and other Officers within their severall limits and jurisdictions, carefully to see the same executed accordingly.

And further, We do will and command all Iustices of Peace, Maiors, Sheriffs, and other principall Officers in their severall places, within the compasse of their severall jurisdictions and authorities, upon complaint to them made, to cause the same to be duly performed without partiality, as they and every of them will answer their contempts at their perils.

And We do further will and command, that no Tobacco whatsoever be from henceforth imported, landed, or unladed to, in, or at any other Port, Haven, Creek, or place within Our Kingdom of England, Dominion of Wales, and Port and Town of Barwick, or any of them, then to, in, or at Our Port of London, without speciall warrant to be obtained from Our Lord high Treasurer of England for the time being in that behalf: And that all Merchants, Masters, and Owners of any Ship or Ships, and other persons whatsoever within or under Our obedience, do take notice of Our Royall command and pleasure herein, and do carefully and duly observe the same accordingly.

And We do hereby straitly charge and command all Our Subjects to yeeld their due obedience in all and singular the Premisses, as they tender Our pleasure, and will answer the contrary at their perill.

Given at Our Court at VVhitehall the five and twentieth day of March, in the fourteenth yeer of Our Reign. ❧God save the King.

§

§

Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie: And by the Assignes of JOHN BILL. 1638.

Information about this book

Title statement

By the King a proclamation concerning tobacco.

England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I)

Edition statement

1639

Publication

Publisher

Text Creation Partnership,

Place of publication

Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) :

Date

2004-03 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1).

ID [DLPS]

A22634

ID [STC]

STC 9138

ID [STC]

ESTC S3596

ID [EEBO-CITATION]

33150549

ID [OCLC]

ocm 33150549

ID [VID]

28655

Availability

This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal. The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Series

Early English books online.

Notes

(EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A22634)

Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 28655)

Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1475-1640 ; 1877:45)

Source

— By the King a proclamation concerning tobacco., England and Wales. Sovereign (1625-1649 : Charles I), Charles I, King of England, 1600-1649..

Extent

[2] leaves.

By Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majestie: And by the Assignes of John Bill,. Imprinted at London :: 1638 [i.e. 1639]. (Caption title.) (Imprint from colophon.) (Regulating domestic retail trade.) ("Given at Our Court at VVhitehall the five and twentieth day of March, in the fourteenth yeer of Our Reign.") (Reproduction of original in: Society of Antiquaries.)

Creation

Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford.

Editorial practices

EEBO-TCP is a partnership between the Universities of Michigan and Oxford and the publisher ProQuest to create accurately transcribed and encoded texts based on the image sets published by ProQuest via their Early English Books Online (EEBO) database (http://eebo.chadwyck.com). The general aim of EEBO-TCP is to encode one copy (usually the first edition) of every monographic English-language title published between 1473 and 1700 available in EEBO.

EEBO-TCP aimed to produce large quantities of textual data within the usual project restraints of time and funding, and therefore chose to create diplomatic transcriptions (as opposed to critical editions) with light-touch, mainly structural encoding based on the Text Encoding Initiative (http://www.tei-c.org).

The EEBO-TCP project was divided into two phases. The 25,363 texts created during Phase 1 of the project have been released into the public domain as of 1 January 2015. Anyone can now take and use these texts for their own purposes, but we respectfully request that due credit and attribution is given to their original source.

Users should be aware of the process of creating the TCP texts, and therefore of any assumptions that can be made about the data.

Text selection was based on the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (NCBEL). If an author (or for an anonymous work, the title) appears in NCBEL, then their works are eligible for inclusion. Selection was intended to range over a wide variety of subject areas, to reflect the true nature of the print record of the period. In general, first editions of a works in English were prioritized, although there are a number of works in other languages, notably Latin and Welsh, included and sometimes a second or later edition of a work was chosen if there was a compelling reason to do so.

Image sets were sent to external keying companies for transcription and basic encoding. Quality assurance was then carried out by editorial teams in Oxford and Michigan. 5% (or 5 pages, whichever is the greater) of each text was proofread for accuracy and those which did not meet QA standards were returned to the keyers to be redone. After proofreading, the encoding was enhanced and/or corrected and characters marked as illegible were corrected where possible up to a limit of 100 instances per text. Any remaining illegibles were encoded as <gap>s. Understanding these processes should make clear that, while the overall quality of TCP data is very good, some errors will remain and some readable characters will be marked as illegible. Users should bear in mind that in all likelihood such instances will never have been looked at by a TCP editor.

The texts were encoded and linked to page images in accordance with level 4 of the TEI in Libraries guidelines.

Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements).

Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site.