The discovery of the tobacco plant in America by European voyagers aroused their cupidity no less than their curiosity. They saw in its use by the Indians a custom which, if engrafted upon the civilization of the Old World, would prove a source of revenue commensurate with their wildest visions of power and wealth. This was particularly the case with the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors, whose thirst for gold was gratified by its discovery. The finding by the Spaniards of gold, silver, and the balmy plant, and by the Portuguese of valuable and glittering gems, opened up to Spain and Portugal three great sources of wealth and power. But while the Spaniards were the first discoverers of the plant there seems to be conflicting opinions as to which nation first began its culture, and whether the plant was cultivated first in the Old World or in the New. Humboldt says:--

"It was neither from Virginia nor from South America, but from the Mexican province of Yucatan that Europe received the first tobacco seeds about the year 1559.[20] The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco in the West India Islands at the end of the 15th Century, and the cultivation of Tobacco preceded the cultivation of the potato in Europe more than one hundred and twenty years. When Sir Walter Raleigh brought tobacco from Virginia to England in 1586, whole fields of it were already cultivated in Portugal.[21]

It was also previously known in France."

[Footnote 20: Mussey in his Essay on Tobacco records "That Cortez sent a specimen of the plant to the king of Spain in 1519." Yucatan was discovered by Hernandez Cordova in 1517, and in 1519 was first settled.]

[Footnote 21: Spain began its culture in Mexico on the coast of Caracas at the islands of St. Domingo and Trinidad, and particularly in Louisiana.]

Another author says of its introduction into Europe:--

"The seeds of the tobacco plant were first brought to Europe by Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo, who introduced it into Spain, where it was first cultivated as an ornamental plant, till Monardes[22] extolled it as possessed of medicinal virtues."[23]

[Footnote 22: Pourchat declares that the Portuguese brought it into Europe from Tobago, an island in the West Indies; but this is hardly probable, as the island was never under the Portuguese dominion.]

[Footnote 23: Monardes wrote upon it only from the small account he had of it from the Brazilians.]

Murray says of the first cultivation of tobacco and potatoes in the Old World:--

"Amidst the numerous remarkable productions ushered into the Old Continent from the New World, there are two which stand pre-eminently conspicuous from their general adoption.

Unlike in their nature, both have been received as extensive blessings--the one by its nutritive powers tends to support, the other by its narcotic virtues to soothe and comfort the human frame--the potato and tobacco; but very different was the favor with which these plants were viewed. The one long rejected, by the slow operation of time, and, perhaps, of necessity, was at length cherished, and has become the support of millions, but nearly one hundred and twenty years pa.s.sed away before even a trial of its merits was attempted; whereas, the tobacco from Yucatan, in less than seventy years after the discovery, appears to have been extensively cultivated in Portugal, and is, perhaps, the most generally adopted superfluous vegetable product known; for sugar and opium are not in such common use. The potato by the starch satisfies the hunger; the tobacco by its morphia calms its turbulence of the mind. The former becomes a necessity required, the latter a gratification sought for."

It would appear then that the year 1559 was about the period of the introduction of tobacco into Europe. Phillip II. of Spain sent Oviedo to visit Mexico and note its productions and resources; returning he presented "His Most Catholic Majesty" with the seeds of the plant. In the following year it was introduced into France and Italy. It was first brought to France by Jean Nicot of Nismes in Languedoc, who was sent as amba.s.sador to Sebastian, King of Portugal, and who obtained while at Lisbon some tobacco seed from a Dutch merchant who had brought it from Florida.[24] Nicot returned to France in 1561, and presented the Queen, Catherine de Medicis, with a few leaves of the plant.[25]

[Footnote 24: Parkinson in his Herball [London, 1640]

says:--"It is thought by some that John Nicot, this Frenchman, being agent in Portugall for the French King, sent this sort of tobacco [Brazil] and not any other to the French Queene, and is called therefore herba Regina, and from Nicotiana, which is probably because the Portugalis and not the Spaniards were masters of Brazile at that time."]

[Footnote 25: "Sir John Nicot sent some seeds of it into France, to King Francis II., the Queen Mother, and Lord Jarnac, Governor of Rochel, and several others of the French Lords."]

As the history of Nicot is so intimately connected with that of the plant, a short sketch of this original importer will doubtless be interesting to all lovers of the weed:--

"John Nicot, Sieur de Villemain, was born at Nismes in 1530, and died at Paris in 1600. He was the son of a notary at Nismes, and started in life with a good education, but with no fortune. Finding that his native town offered no suitable or sufficient field for his energies, he went to Paris and strove hard to extend his studies as a scholar and his connections as an adventurer. He made the acquaintance of some courtiers, who felt or affected an interest in learning and in learned men. His manners were insinuating; his character was pliable. When presented at court he succeeded in gaining the esteem and confidence of Henry II., the husband of Catherine de Medicis. Francis II., the son of Henry II., and the first husband of Mary Stuart, continued to Nicot the favor of which Henry II. had deemed him worthy, and sent him in 1560 as amba.s.sador to Sebastian, King of Portugal. He was successful in his mission. But it was neither his talents as a diplomatist, nor his remarkable mind, nor his solid erudition, which made Nicot immortal. It was by popularizing tobacco in France that he gained a lasting fame.

"It is said that it was at Lisbon that Nicot became acquainted with the extraordinary properties of tobacco. But it is likewise stated with quite as much confidence, that a Flemish merchant, who had just returned from America, offered Nicot at Bordeaux, where they met, some seeds of the tobacco, telling him of their value. The seeds Nicot sent to Catherine de Medicis, and on arriving in Paris he gave her some leaves of tobacco. Hence, when tobacco began to creep into use in France it was called Queen's Herb or Medicean Herb.[26] The cultivation of tobacco, except as a fancy plant, did not begin in France till 1626; and John Nicot could have had no presentiment of the agricultural, commercial, financial and social importance which tobacco was ultimately to a.s.sume. Nicot published two works. The first was an edition of the History of France or of the Franks, in Latin, written by a Monk called Aimonious, who lived in the tenth century. The second was a 'Treasury of the French Language, Ancient and Modern.'"

[Footnote 26: "The Abbe Jacques Gohory, the author of the first book written on tobacao, proposed to call it Catherinaine or Medicee, to record the name of Medicis and the medicinal virtues of the plant; but the name of Nicot superseded these, and botanists have perpetuated it in the genus _Nicotiana_."--_Le Maout and Decaisne._]

Stevens and Liebault in the "Country Farm"[27] give the following account of its early introduction into France and the wonderful cures produced by its use:

[Footnote 27: London 1606.]

"Nicotiana though it have (has) beene but a while knowne in France yet it holdeth the first and princ.i.p.all place amongst Physicke herbs, by reason of his singular and almost diuine (divine) vertues, such as you shall heare of hereafter, whereof (because none either of the old or new writers that have written of the nature of plants, have said anything), I am willing to lay open the whole history, as I have come by it through a deere friend of mine, the first author, inventor, and bringer of this herb into France: as also of many both Spaniards, Portugals, and others which have travelled into Florida, a country of the Indians, from whence this herbe came, to put the same in writing to relieve such griefe and travell, as have heard of this herbe, but neither know it nor the properties thereof. This herbe is called Nicotiana of the name of an amba.s.sador which brought the first knowledge of it into this realme, in like manner as many plants do as yet retaine the names of certaine Greekes and Romans, who being strangers in divers countries, for their common-wealth's service, have from thence indowed their own countree with many plants, whereof there was no knowledge before. Some call it the herbe of Queen mother, because the said amba.s.sador Lord Nicot did first send the same unto the Queen mother,[28] (as you shall understand by and by) and for being afterwards by her given to divers others to plant and make to grow in this country.

Others call it by the name of the herbe of the great Prior, because the said Lord a while after sailing into these western seas, and happening to lodge neere unto the said Lord amba.s.sador of Lisbone, gathered divers plants thereof out of his garden, and set them to increase here in France, and there in greater quant.i.tie, and with more care than any other besides him, he did so highly esteeme thereof for the exceeding good qualities sake.

[Footnote 28: George Buchanan, the Scotch Philosopher and poet tutor of James I., had a strong aversion to Catherine of Medicis, and in one of his Latin epigrams, alludes to the herb being called _Medicie_, advising all who valued their health to shun it, not so much from its being naturally hurtful, but that it needs must become poisonous if called by so hateful a name.]

"The Spaniards call it Tobaco, it were better to call it Nicotiana, after the name of the Lord who first sent it into France, to the end that we may give him the honor which he hath deserved of us, for having furnished our land with so rare and singular an herbe: and thus much for the name, now listen unto the whole historie: Master John Nicot, one of the king's counsell, being amba.s.sador for his Maiestie (Majesty) in the realme of Portiugall, in the yeere of our Lord G.o.d, 1559. 60. and 61. went on a day to see the monuments and northie places of the said king of Portiugall: at which time a gentleman keeper of the said monuments presented him with this herbe as a strange plant brought from Florida. The n.o.bleman Sir Nicot having procured it to growe in his garden, where it had put forth and multiplied very greatly, was aduertifed (notified) on a daie by one of his pages, that a yoong boie kinsman of the said page, had laide (for triall sake) the said herbe, pressed, the substance and juice and altogether, upon an ulcer which he had upon his cheeke, neere unto his nose, next neighbor to a _Noli me tangere_, (a cancer) as having already seazed upon the cartilages, and that by the use thereof it was become marvellous well: upon this occasion the n.o.bleman Nicot called the boie to him, and making him to continue the applying of this herbe for eight or ten days, the _Noli me tangere_ became thoroughly kild: nowe they had sent oftetimes unto one of the king's most famous phisitions, the said boie during the time of this worke and operation to make and see the proceeding and working of the said Nicotiana, and having in charge to do the same until the end of ten days, the said phisition then beholding him, a.s.sured him that the _Noli me tangere_ was dead, as indeed the boie never felt anything of it at any time afterward.

"Some certain time after, one of the cooks of the said amba.s.sador having almost all his thombe (thumb) cut off from his hand, with a great kitchin knife, the steward running unto the said Nicotiana, made to him use of it five or six dressings, by the ende of which the wounde was healed. From this time forward this herbe began to become famous in Lisbon, where the king of Portiugal's court was at that time, and the vertues thereof much spoken of, and the common people began to call it the amba.s.sador's herbe. Now upon this occasion there came certain days after, a gentleman from the fields being father unto one of the pages of the said Lord amba.s.sador, who was troubled with an ulcer in his legge of two years continuance, and craved of the said Lord some of his herbe, and using it in manner afore mentioned, he was healed by the end of ten or twelve daies. After this yet the herbe grewe still in greater reputation, inasmuch as that many hasted out of all corners to get some of this herbe. And among the rest, there was one woman which had a great ring worme, covering all her face like a mask, and having taken deepe roote, to whom the said Lord caused this Petum to be given, and withall the manner of using it to be told her, and at the end of eight or ten daies, this woman being thoroughly cured, came to shewe herself unto the said Lord, and how that she was cured. There came likewise a captain bringing with him his son diseased with the king's evill, unto the said Lord Amba.s.sador, for to send him into France, upon whom there was some triall made of the said herbe, whereupon within four daies he began to show great signs and tokens of healing, and in the end was thoroughly cured of his king's evil."

Italy received the first plant from Santa Croce,[29] who, like Nicot, obtained the seed in Lisbon. In 1575 first appeared a figure of the plant in Andre Theret's "Cosmographie," which was but an imperfect representation of the plant. It was supposed by many on its discovery to grow like the engraving given--in form resembling a tree or shrub rather than an herb. Tobacco was first brought to England by Sir John Hawkins, who obtained the plant in Florida in 1565, and afterwards by Sir Francis Drake.[30] The first planters of it in England were said to be Captain Grenfield and Sir Francis Drake. One account of its introduction into England is as follows:

[Footnote 29: The Pied Bull Inn, at Islington, was the first house in England where tobacco was smoked, while Moll Cut-Purse, a noted pickpocket who flourished in the time of Charles II., is said to have been the first Englishwoman who smoked tobacco.]

[Footnote 30: "It was introduced, about 1520, into Portugal and Spain by Doctor Hernandez of Toledo; into Italy by Thornabon and the Cardinal de Sainte-Croif, into England by Captain Drake and into France by Andre Theret, a gray friar."--_Le Maout and Decaisne's General System of Botany_ (Paris 1868).]

"The plant was first used by Sir Walter Raleigh and others, who had acquired a taste for it in Virginia.[31] Among the natives the usual mode employed in smoking the plant was by means of hollow canes, and pipes made of wood and decorated with copper and green stones. To deprive it of its acidity, some of the natives were wont to pa.s.s the smoke through bulbs containing water, in which aromatic and medicinal herbs had been infused."

[Footnote 31: Short says of its introduction into England: "Sir Walter Raleigh's Marriners, under Mr.

Ralph Lane, his Agent in Virginia first brought this Commodity into England Anno 1584; and that famous Proprietor of this Plantation foresaw good reasons to introduce the use of it, however King James might afterwards, through his own personal Distaste both of it and, him, wrote his Counterblast against it; a work surely consistent with the Pen of no Prince, but one of his Politicks."]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Old engraving of tobacco.]

Neander ascribes this invention to the Persians; but Magnenus rather attributes it to the Dutch and English, to the latter of whom attaches the credit of having invented the clay pipes of modern times. Some writers have concluded that the plant served as a narcotic in some parts of Asia. Liebault thinks it was known in Europe[32] many years before the discovery of the New World, and a.s.serts that the plant had been found in the Ardennes. Magnenus, however, claims its origin as transatlantic and affirms as his belief that the winds had doubtless carried the seeds from one continent to the other. Pallos says that among the Chinese, and among the Mongol tribes who had the most intercourse with them, the custom of smoking is so general, so frequent, and has become so indispensable a luxury; the tobacco purse affixed to their belt so necessary an article of dress; the form of the pipes, from which the Dutch seem to have taken the model of theirs, so original; and, finally, the preparation of the leaves so peculiar, that they could not possibly derive all this from America by way of Europe, especially as India, where the practice of smoking is not so general, intervenes between Persia and China. Meyen also states that the consumption of tobacco in the Chinese empire is of immense extent, and the practice seems to be of great antiquity, "for on very old sculptures I have observed the very same tobacco pipes which are still used." Besides, we now know that the plant which furnishes the Chinese tobacco is even said to grow wild in the East Indies.

[Footnote 32: James the First also inclines to this belief, declaring tobacco to be "a common herb which (though under divers names) grows almost everywhere."]

"Tobacco," says Loudon, "was introduced into the county of Cork, with the potatoe, by Sir Walter Raleigh." A quaint writer of this period says of the plant: "Tobacco, that excellent plant, the use whereof (as of fifth element) the world cannot want, is that little shop of Nature, wherein her whole workmanship is abridged; where you may see earth kindled into fire, the fire breathe out an exhalation, which entering in at the mouth walks through the regions of a man's brain, drives out all ill vapors but itself, draws down all bad humors by the mouth, which in time might breed a scab over the whole body, if already they have not; a plant of singular use; for, on the one side Nature being an enemy to vacuity and emptiness and on the other, there being so many empty brains in the world as there are, how shall Nature's course be continued? How shall those empty brains be filled but with air, Nature's immediate instrument to that purpose? If with air, what so proper as your fume; what fume so healthful as your perfume, what perfume so sovereign as tobacco. Besides the excellent edge it gives a man's wit, as they but judge that have been present at a feast of tobacco, where commonly all good wits are consoled; what variety of discourse it begets, what sparks of wit it yields?"[33]

[Footnote 33: A writer in the "New England Magazine"

says in a different strain: "This is the enemy that men put in their mouths, to steal away their health. This has filled the camp, the court, the grove. It is found in the pulpit, the senate, the bar and the boudoir."]

The name of Sir Walter is intimately connected with the history of tobacco, and is a.s.sociated with many of the brilliant exploits and explorations during the reign of the ill.u.s.trious Elizabeth.[34] His name has come down to us as being that of the first smoker of tobacco in England,[35] and many amusing anecdotes are told of him and the new custom which he introduced and sanctioned. Dixon has given us the following vivid picture of the great Elizabethan navigator:

[Footnote 34: Thorpe, in his "History and Mystery of Tobacco," relates the following anecdote: "Tradition says, that in the time of Queen Elizabeth Sir Walter Raleigh used to sit at his door with Sir Hugh Middleton and smoke."]

[Footnote 35: Dr. Thomas Short, in his work "Discourses on Tea, Tobacco, Punch, &c," (London 1750,) says of the original smoker: "Sir Walter was the first that brought the Custom of smoking it into Britain, upon his return from America; for he saw the natives of Florida, Brazil and other places of the Indies, smoak it thus, they hung about their Necks little Pipes or Horns made of the Leaves of the Date Tree, or of Reeds or Rushes; and at the ends of them they put several dry Tobacco Leaves twisted and broken, and set the ends of them on fire, and sucked in as much of the smoak as they could."]

"In a pleasant room of Durham House, in the Strand,--a room overhanging a lovely garden, with the river, the old bridge, the towers of Lambeth Palace, and the flags of Paris Garden and the Globe in view,--three men may have often met and smoked a pipe in the days of Good Queen Bess, who are dear to all readers of English blood; because, in the first place, they were the highest types of our race in genius and in daring; in the second place because the work of their hands has shaped the whole after-life of their countrymen in every sphere of enterprise and thought. That splendid Durham House, in which the nine-days queen had been married to Guilford Dudley, and which had afterwards been the town-house of Elizabeth, belonged to Sir Walter Raleigh, by whom it was held on leave from the queen. Raleigh, a friend of William Shakespeare and the players, was also a friend of Francis Bacon and the philosophers. Raleigh is said to have founded the Mermaid Club; and it is certain that he numbered friends among the poets and players. The proofs of his having known Shakespeare, though indirect, are strong. Of his long intercourse with Bacon every one is aware. Thus it requires no effort of the fancy to picture these three men as lounging in a window of Durham House, puffing the new Indian weed from silver bowls, discussing the highest themes in poetry and science, while gazing on the flower-beds and the river, the darting barges of dames and cavalier, and the distant pavilions of Paris Garden and the Globe."

Its use by so distinguished a person as Raleigh was equivalent to its general introduction.[36] Aubrey says:

[Footnote 36: So common was the indulgence that in 1600, only seventeen years after Sir Francis Drake returned from America, and set the example of using tobacco, the French Emba.s.sador writes in his dispatches to Paris, that the peers, while engaged in the trials of Ess.e.x and Southampton, deliberated upon their verdicts with pipes in their mouths!]

"He was the first that brought tobacco into England, and into fashion. In our part--Malmsbury Hundred--it came first into fashion by Sir Walter Long. They had first silver pipes. The ordinary sort made use of a walnut sh.e.l.l and a strawe. I have heard my grandfather Lyte 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 tooke a pipe of tobacco, which made the ladies quitte it till he had donne."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Sir Walter Raleigh.]

A writer has truthfully said in regard to a.s.sociating the name and use of the plant with the primitive users of it.

"The ambitious sought fame by a.s.sociating themselves with the introduction of the plant and its cultivation; hence we find it named after cardinals, legates, and emba.s.sadors, while in compliment to Catherine, wife of Henry the Second, it was called the Queen's herb."

Kings now rushed into the tobacco trade. Those of Spain took the lead, and became the largest manufacturers of snuff and cigars in Christendom, and the royal workshops of Seville are still the most extensive in Europe. Other monarchs monopolized the business in their dominions, and all began to reap enormous profits from it, as most do at this day. In the year 1615 tobacco was first planted in Holland; and in Switzerland in 1686. As soon as its cultivation became general in Spain and Portugal the tobacco trade was "farmed out," bringing an enormous revenue to those kingdoms. About the beginning of the Seventeenth Century the Portuguese introduced into Hindostan and Persia[37] two things, pine-apples and tobacco. To the pine-apples no objection seems to have been made; but to the tobacco the most strenuous resistance was offered by the sovereigns of the two countries. Spite, however, of punishments and prohibitions the use of tobacco spread with the rapidity of lightning.

[Footnote 37: Savary says that tobacco has been known among the Persians for upwards of 400 years, and supposes that they received it from Egypt, and not from the East Indies.]

In England, tobacco taking soon became a favorite custom not only with the loiterers about taverns and other public places, but among the courtiers of Elizabeth. Smoking was called drinking tobacco, as the fashionable method was to "put it through the nose" or exhale it through the nostrils. At this period tobacco seemed to have nearly the same effect as it did upon the Indian, producing a sort of intoxication; thus in "The Perfuming of Tobacco" (1611) it is said: "The smoke of tobacco drunke or drawen by a pipe, filleth the membranes of the braine, and astonisheth and filleth many persons with such joy and pleasure, and sweet losse of senses, that they can by no means be without it."