ORIGIN AND SPEEAD. 5 



In June, 1619, twenty thousand pounds were shipped 

 to England. James I, a pedant in learning and a fool 

 in statecraft, made a furious attack upon the use of 

 tobacco in a paper which he called "A Counterblaste to 

 Tobacco." His kingly influence caused a duty of six- 

 pence a pound to be levied on all importations of tobacco 

 to the United Kingdom. So far, however, from the 

 "Counterblaste" proving an injury to the planter and a 

 check to the consumption of tobacco, it actually in- 

 creased the one and benefited the other. Prices went 

 up and the area of its cultivation was rapidly enlarged. 

 From this period on, the col- 

 ony of Virginia grew and ex- 

 panded, and the narcotic 

 which aroused the kingly ire 

 of James became the founda- 

 tion stone upon which was 

 erected one of the most pop- 

 ulous and prosperous com- 

 monwealths in the New 

 World. And so it came about 

 that the beginning of law, 

 the expansion of justice, ae 

 increase of commerce, civili- BROUGHT IN BY A FEMALE. 

 zation, culture, refinement From Be Bry ' 8 "ST" Brasl " ana> " 

 and progressive thought, rested upon the plant, the 

 fumes of which were compared by King James to the 

 "fumes of hell." 



Young women were brought into the colony after 

 this, to become the wives of the growers of tobacco. In 

 1620, and just before the Pilgrim Fathers landed on 

 Plymouth Rock, ninety young women were brought to 

 Virginia, chargeable with the cost of transportation, 

 which was at first one hundred and twenty pounds, and 

 afterwards one hundred and fifty pounds, of tobacco. 

 This expense was cheerfully borne by those who took 



