Now melts into sorrow, now maddens to crime,
had often experienced its influence on a wounded heart. Indeed, the history and associations of the plant, from its wild Indian home to the remotest East, are full of romance of more than ordinary interest. For, like most things transatlantic, whether products of the soil or of the brain, it rapidly became universal, spreading literally like wild-fire wherever man was to be found. Everywhere it was esteemed a close comfort, a priceless possession, and to its rare qualities were ascribed almost miraculous powers. The persistency with which men have stuck to the weed, after once experiencing its soothing effects, ranks among the most remarkable examples history affords of the rapid development of a new taste and the formation of a new habit; a habit that, after the lapse of three centuries and more, grows stronger day by day, keeping full pace with the increase of population, until now it is too deeply rooted ever to be extirpated, even by taxation, however weighty. Viewed in its political aspect, the career of the Indian weed presents a striking illustration of popular opinion ultimately triumphing over prejudice and power.
Here let us take a cursory glance back to the heroic age when the marvellous weed which has almost revolutionised men’s habits all over the world, and created a new industry giving employment to millions of human beings, was first imported into these islands.
A halo of romance surrounds those jubilant days; but, in the eyes of Englishmen generally, Sir Walter Raleigh stands out prominently as the hero to whom the honour is due of giving his countrymen their first instalment of tobacco. England had just awakened to the reality of a new world of wonders and boundless wealth lying unexplored in the far West; a land where everything touched turned to gold. The far-famed discoveries and conquests of the Spaniards, their fabled El Dorado, drew forth the daring and enterprising from every corner of Europe. Stirred by an overpowering desire to see the marvels, and share in the treasures of the terra incognita which was in all men’s mouths, our hardy sea captains, Hawkins, Drake, Raleigh, and a host more of England’s sturdy sons, sailed the Spanish main, bent upon achieving fame or fortune, yet caring little what lot befell them if only renown were won for their idolised Queen Bess. They encountered the mild Indian, and explored a portion of his glorious land, teeming with a rich luxuriance of vegetation such as their eyes had never before beheld. But what of El Dorado, the famed city of gold and precious stones, hemmed in by golden mountains, whose splendour and immense treasure beckoned them onward? Alas! the gorgeous phantasm of the New World, like the glories of the setting sun, melted away before their advancing steps. And yet many a poor, dispirited wayfarer in the pursuit of the alluring ignis fatuus found comfort and consolation in the humble weed which the natives supplied to him and taught him how to use. In testimony whereof, listen to honest Jack Brimblecombe in Westward Ho! ‘Heaven forgive me! but when I get the leaf between my teeth, I feel tempted to sit as still as a chimney and smoke to my dying day.’ And faithful old Yeo pours forth his pent-up gratitude for the comfort he derives from the Indians’ herb in a stream of consolation for the lonely and afflicted, assuring us that when all things were made none was made better than this. And here he enumerates the blessing breathed upon the weary and worn traveller in those far-off lands by the herb, like unto which there is not another under the canopy of heaven.
In the summer of 1584, Raleigh, his imagination aglow with brilliant colonisation schemes which should eclipse those of Spain, sent out an expedition to explore the coast of the new continent. On July 13, the party, under Captains Amadas and Barlowe, took possession of the territory which Raleigh subsequently named Virginia, in honour of the Queen. In the following year a second expedition was despatched, conveying one hundred and seven souls, whom, with Master Ralph Lane at their head as the governor of the new colony, Raleigh had inspired with his own ardent hopes and plans for the founding of a new settlement that should, in course of time, rival the Spanish conquests. The adventure, however, was not attended with the success anticipated. The party remained in the new territory from August 17, 1585, to June 18, 1586, when Sir Francis Drake, with his fleet, returning along the coast from his victorious raid in the West Indies, called at their port, and, learning their discontent, brought them back to England. They took care, however, not to return empty-handed; a large quantity of tobacco, which the natives had prepared for them, was stowed on board the vessels, with a variety of instruments for preparing and using it. It can well be imagined that Master Lane would take pride in exhibiting himself to London’s gazing multitude smothered in Indian clouds. The learned Camden speaks of Lane as the original English smoker. It is remarkable that there should have been so much uncertainty, even in Eliza-Jacobean times, as to the date when tobacco was first received in this country and the person by whom it was first introduced. The painstaking annalist, Stow, says that tobacco came into England about the twentieth year of Queen Elizabeth (1577). But Aubrey, speaking of Sir Walter Raleigh, says that ‘he was the first that brought tobacco into England and into fashion (1686). In our part of North Wilts—e.g. Malmesbury Hundred—it came first into fashion by Sir Walter Long. They had first silver pipes. The ordinary sort made use of a walnut shell and a straw. I have heard my grandfather, Lyle, say that one pipe was handed from man to man round the table. Sir Walter Raleigh, standing in a stand at Sir Ro. Poyntz parke at Acton, took a pipe of tobacco, which made the ladies quitte it till he had donne.’ The author of a gossipy Tour in Wales (Pennant), in 1810, speaking about the great houses and their associations, says that Captain Price, of Plasyollin, with Captains Myddelton and Koet, on their return from the Azores in 1591, ‘were the first who had smoked or (as they called it) drank tobacco publicly in London, and that the Londoners flocked from all parts to see them. Pipes were not then invented, so they used the twisted leaves, or segars. The invention is usually ascribed to Sir Walter Raleigh. It may be so, but he was too good a courtier to smoke in public, especially in the reign of James.’ Again, in the 1659 translation of Dr. Everard’s Panacea (Antwerp, 1587), it is remarked that ‘Captain Richard Grenfield and Sir Francis Drake were the first planters of it here (England), and not Sir Walter Raleigh, which is the common error; so difficult is it to fix popular discoveries.’ These few selections show us how easily origins are lost sight of.
It seems ungracious to pluck a plume from one so eminently distinguished for important services rendered to his Queen and country as Sir Walter Raleigh; yet nothing in history is more certain than that the common belief crediting him with the first introduction of tobacco into this country is a myth. History, whilst awarding him the palm for potatoes, points to Sir John Hawkins as the first to bring to his countrymen the peaceful pleasures of the pipe. Certainly, the weight of probabilities are in his favour. Taylor, the Water Poet, says: ‘Tobacco was first brought into England in 1565, by Sir John Hawkins.’ And Edmund Howes, in his continuation of Stow’s Annals says: ‘Tobacco was first brought and made known by Sir John Hawkins about the year 1565, but not used by Englishmen for many years after, though at this day it is commonly used by most men and many women.’ These accounts correspond with Hawkins’s second voyage, viz., October 18, 1564, returning September 20, 1565. Confirmatory evidence comes from John Sparkes, the younger, who, in his account of this voyage, says that Hawkins, ranging along the ‘coast of Florida for fresh water, in July 1565, came upon the French settlement there under Landoniere, where the natives, when they travel, have a kind of herbe dryed, which with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire and the dryed herbe put together, they do suck through the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their hunger, and therewith they live four or five days without meat or drink, and this all the Frenchmen used for the purpose.’ Hearing these wonderful stories told of the Indian’s herbe, nothing could be more natural than that Hawkins should make trial of it for himself, and, liking it, secure specimens of the plant for cultivation and use at home. To see and hear and get all he could, was the sole end and aim of his ploughing the Spanish main. Bearing in mind that he got back to England in September 1565, we see that the statements of Taylor, the Water Poet, and Howes, the annalist, that tobacco was brought by Sir John Hawkins in 1565, are consistent and reliable. Collateral evidence on the point is to be found in L’Obel’s work on Botany,[6] written in 1570, wherein he says: ‘Within these few years the West Indian tobacco-plant has become an inmate of England.’ This of itself is conclusive against the Raleigh theory. But let us look a little further into the matter. In 1570, Raleigh was a youth of eighteen, and had just gone to France to fight in the Huguenot cause. Again, in the State Archives, there is still extant an edict issued by Queen Elizabeth against the use and abuse of tobacco, dated 1584—the year Raleigh’s first expedition sailed to the New World.
It is amusing to find Queen Elizabeth fulminating against the pipe she afterwards so willingly countenanced in the mouth of her favourite knight. But then Sir Walter was in every way a splendid man, the typical gallant and hero in England’s heroic age. Tall, dark, handsome, a noble brow, commanding voice and mien, he drew to his side willing hands ready to do his behest, be it what it might. A gay courtier, his dress was of the richest, and priceless gems sparkled on every finger. And so it came about that his proud Queen would quietly sit by his side, would playfully call him Walter, and listen to his tales of daring deeds and sufferings endured all for Good Queen Bess. And had he not won for her a new land full of rich promise, which, for her sake, was named Virginia? And thus they would talk on, Sir Walter smoking his finely-wrought silver pipe in peace, forgetful of the fair, if frail, Maid of Honour, Bessy Throgmorton, listening, maybe, behind the arras. Alas! poor mortal man. The untoward affair at last broke upon Elizabeth like a thunderstorm in a serene sky, and our gallant hero became an outcast from the favour of his Queen.[7]
Among the many anecdotes told of Raleigh’s practices with his pipe may be mentioned that of his outwitting the Queen in a wager she laid with the gallant knight respecting the weight of the smoke which exhaled from a pipeful of tobacco. ‘I can assure your Majesty,’ said Raleigh, ‘that I have so well experienced the nature of it that I can exactly tell even the weight of the smoke in any quantity I consume.’ ‘I doubt it much, Sir Walter,’ replied Elizabeth, thinking only how impossible it must be to catch the smoke and put it in a balance, ‘and will wager you twenty angels that you do not solve my doubt.’ Whereupon Raleigh drew forth a quantity of the weed, placed it in finely adjusted scales, and having ascertained its weight, commenced to smoke it, carefully preserving the ashes. These at the finish he weighed with great exactness. Then would it dawn upon her Majesty how the wager was to end. ‘Your Majesty,’ said Raleigh, ‘cannot deny that the difference hath evaporated in smoke.’ ‘Truly, I cannot,’ was her reply. Then, turning to those around her, who were eying with amusement this curious play on the pipe, she continued, ‘Many labourers in the fire have I heard of (alluding to alchemists) who turned their gold into smoke, but Sir Walter is the first who has turned smoke into gold.’
But the Indian weed had a hard fight to hold its ground in Europe and Asia in face of the most resolute opposition from potentates, statesmen, and priests. In England