84 TOBACCO IN EUROPE. 



When Kings make unnecessary and unjust laws, 

 subjects naturally study how to evade them : it is a 

 mere system of self-defence ; and as James nearly sup- 

 pressed the importation of tobacco, the English farmers 

 began to grow it on their own land. But the Scottish 

 Solomon,* who was on the alert, added another law 

 restraining its cultivation " to misuse and misemploy 

 the soil of this fruitfull Kingdom." f As this enforced 

 the trade with the English colony of Virginia alone, it 

 was soon found that Spanish and Portuguese tobacco 

 might be brought into port on the payment of the old 

 duty of twopence a pound ; thus a large trade was car- 

 ried on with their planters to the injury of the British 

 colonists. Its use increased in spite of all legislative 

 measures, and James ended by prohibiting any person 

 from dealing in the article, who did not hold his letters 

 patent. By this means the trade was monopolised, 

 the consumer oppressed, importation diminished, and 

 the London Company of Virginian traders ultimately 

 ruined. Those who are fond of excusing the evil acts 

 of one of the worst of English Kings, pretend to see 

 James's care for his subjects' health and wealth in 

 these restrictions ; totally regardless of the fact that 



caring at what price they buy the drag, but rather devising how to add to 

 it other mixtures, thereby to make it the more delightful to the taste." 



* This term, so very composedly taken as a compliment to James, was 

 really intended for the reverse. It was applied to him by Henry the 

 Fourth of France, in allusion to his mother's intimacy with David Eizzio, 

 — Solomon being "the son of David." 



*t* The tyrannic selfishness of James peeps forth in the first phrase of 

 his Act : — "Whereas We, out of the dislike toe have to tobacco," a strange 

 reason for crushing the pleasure and trade of his subjects ! 



