[Sealing of Tobacco.]

BY THE KING.

A Proclamation touching the Sealing of Tobacco.

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.

God save the King.

Imprinted at London by Bonham Norton and John Bill, Printers to the Kings most Excellent Majestie. M.DC.XXVII.

1 p. folio. Copies in Antiq., B. M., Crawf., P. C., and P. R. O. Entered on Patent Rolls. Printed in Rymer's "Foedera," xviii, 886.