114 FROM “OLD SALT.” 
The Puritans, from the first introduction of the plant, 
were sincere haters of tobacco, not only in England but in 
America. Cromwell had as strong a dislike of the plant as 
King James, and ordered the troopers to destroy the crops 
by trampling them under foot. Hutton describes a Puritan 
as one who 
*¢ Abhors a sattin suit, a velvet cloak, 
And sayes tobacco is the Devill’s smoke.” 
Probably no other plant has ever met with such powerful 
determined opposition, both against its use and cultivation, 
as the tobacco plant. It was strenuously opposed by all 
possible means, governmental, legislative, and literary. When 
tea and coffee were first introduced both were denounced in 
unmeasured terms, but the opposition was not so bitter or as 
lasting. 
The following verses bearing the nom de plume of an“ Old 
Salt,” record much of the history of the plant:— 
‘Oh muse! grant me the power 
(I have the will) to sing 
How oft in lonely hour, 
When storms would round me lower, 
Tobacco’s prov’d a King! 
* Philanthropists, no doubt 
With good intentions ripe, 
Their dogmas may put out, 
And arrogantly shout 
The evils of the pipe. a 
“ Kind moralists, with tracts, 
Opinions fine may show: 
Produce a thousand facts— 
How ill tobacco acts 
Man’s system to o’erthrow. 
“* Learn’d doctors have employed 
Much patience, time and skill, 
To prove tobacco cloyed 
With acrid alkaloid, 
With power the nerves to kill 
‘* B’en Popes have curst the plants 
Kings bade its use to cease; 
