upplied
with it for their long voyages. Soldiers cannot (but) want
it when they keep guard all night, or upon other hard duties
in cold and tempestuous weather. Farmers, ploughmen, and
almost all labouring men, plead for it. If we reflect upon
our forefathers, and that within the time of less than one
hundred years, before the use of tobacco came to be known
amongst us, we cannot but wonder how they did to subsist
without it; for were the planting or traffick of tobacco now
hindered, millions of this nation in all probability must
perish for the want of food, their whole livelihood almost
depending upon it."

When first discovered in America, and particularly by the English in
Virginia, the plant was cultivated only by the females of the tribes,
the chiefs and warriors engaging only in the chase or following the
warpath. They cultivated a few plants around their wigwams, and cured
a few pounds for their own use. The smoke, as it ascended from their
pipes and circled around their rude huts and out into the air, seemed
typical of the race--the original cultivators and smokers of the
plant. But, unlike the great herb which they cherished and gave to
civilization, they have gradually grown weak in numbers and faded
away, while the great plant has gone on its way, ever assuming more
and more sway over the commercial and social world, until it now takes
high rank among the leading elements of mercantile and agricultural
greatness.

CHAPTER III.

TOBACCO IN AMERICA.

We do not find in any accounts of the English voyagers made previous
to 1584, any mention of the discovery of tobacco, or its use among the
Indians. This may appear a little strange, as Captains Amidas and
Barlow, who sailed from England under the auspices of Sir Walter
Raleigh in 1584, on returning from Virginia, had brought home with
them pearls and tobacco among other curiosities. But while we have no
account of those who returned from the voyage made in 1602 taking any
tobacco with them, it is altogether probable that those who remained
took a lively interest in the plant and the Indian mode of use; for we
find that in nine years after they landed at Jamestown tobacco had
become quite an article of culture and commerce.

Hamo in alluding to the early cultivation of tobacco by the colony,
says, that John Rolfe was the pioneer tobacco planter. In his words:

"I may not forget the gentle