English colony in North America whose tobacco trade was affected indirectly by the eighteenth-century running trade through the Isle of Man.

A memorial from the merchants and shipowners of Whitehaven described a formerly substantial trade with Virginia, Maryland and other American colonies. British manufactures were exported across the Atlantic and tobacco and other colonial produce returned through Whitehaven.

The memorial argued that this commerce had declined because of the growth of smuggling from Mann. Manx tobacco manufactories imported leaf, processed it on the Island and supplied Irish markets clandestinely, reducing the profitable Whitehaven trade in colonial tobacco.

The complaint formed part of the wider campaign against the Manx running trade during the 1750s. The merchants claimed that Mann’s position within a short sail of the coasts of Britain and Ireland made it particularly effective as a depot for highly taxed foreign and colonial goods.

The connection with Virginia was therefore commercial rather than administrative: Virginia tobacco moved within an Atlantic trading system in which Whitehaven merchants considered Manx manufacture and smuggling a direct threat to their lawful trade.