42 PROPORTIONS OF THE TOBACCO TRADE. 



one of the finest tobaccos known,* and large quantities 

 were shipped to Spain and Portugal. The early voyagers 

 little dreamed, however, of the vast proportions to be 

 assumed by the trade in the plant which they had dis- 

 covered, and which in time proved a source of the greatest 

 profit not only to the European colonies, but to the dealers in 

 the Old World. 



Helps, treating on this same subject, says : 



" It is interesting to observe the way in which a new pro- 

 duct is introduced to the notice of the Old World a 

 product that was hereafter to become, not only an unfailing 

 source of pleasure to a large section of the whole part of 

 mankind, from the highest to the lowest, but was also 

 to distinguish itself as one of those commodities for revenue, 

 which are the delight of statesmen, the great financial 

 resource of modern nations, and which afford a means 

 of indirect taxation that has perhaps nourished many a war, 

 and prevented many a revolution. The importance, financi- 

 ally and commercially speaking, of this discovery of 

 tobacco a discovery which in the end proved more produc- 

 tive to the Spanish crown than that of the gold mines of the 

 Indies." 



Spain and Portugal in all their colonies fostered and 

 encouraged its cultivation and then at once ranked as 

 the best producers and dealers in tobacco. The varieties 

 grown by them in the West Indies and South America were 

 highly esteemed and commanded much higher prices than 

 that grown by the English and Dutch colonies. In 1620, 

 however, the Dutch merchants were the largest wholesale 

 tobacconists in Europe, and the people of Holland, generally, 

 the greatest consumers of the weed. 



The expedition of 1584, under the auspices of Sir Walter 

 Raleigh, which resulted in the discovery of Virginia, also 

 introduced the tobacco plant, among other novelties, to the 

 attention of the English. Hariot,f who sailed with this 

 expedition, says of the plant : 



" There is an herb which is sowed apart by itselfe, and is 



Trinidad tobacco was then considered the finest. 



tA brief and true Report of the New Found Land of Virginia (London, 1588). 



