You remember that Columbus had noticed how the natives of his "India"
smoked rolled-up dried leaves. But, no one paid much attention to
it. Then the men of Raleigh's expedition again noticed it. They
tried it themselves, found it comforting, and brought both tobacco
and the habit home with them. And soon not only the seafaring
adventurers but many a man who was never likely to see the ocean,
or adventure beyond his native town, had taken to smoking. That,
too, despite his king's disgust at it. For James thought smoking
was "a custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to
the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black smoking fumes
thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit
that is bottomless." He indeed wrote a little book against it,
which he called "A Counterblaste to Tobacco." But no one paid much
attention to him. The demand for tobacco became greater and greater,
and soon the Virginian farmers found that there was a sale for as
much tobacco as they could grow, and that a crop of it paid better
than anything else.
Up till now the colony had. been a constant disappointment to the
"adventurers" - that is, to the people who had given the money to
fit out the expeditions - the shareholders we would now call them.
Most of them had adventured their money, not with any idea of
founding a New England beyond the seas where men should settle down
as farmers and tillers of the soil.
Pages:
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188