Tobacco, this anodyne for the irritability of human reason, is, like spirituous liquors which make it drunk, a highly-taxed article in all civilized societies. In Spain, the Bourbon dynasty (as elsewhere) is the hereditary tobacconist-general, and the privilege of sale is generally farmed out to some contractor: accordingly, such a trump as a really good home-made cigar is hardly to be had for love or money in the Peninsula. Diogenes would sooner expect to find an honest man in any of the government offices. As there is no royal road to the science of cigar-making, the article is badly concocted, of bad materials, and, to add insult to injury, is charged at a most exorbitant price. In order to benefit the Havañah, tobacco is not allowed to be grown in Spain, which it would do in perfection in the neighbourhood of Malaga; for the experiment was made, and having turned out quite successfully, the cultivation was immediately prohibited. The iniquity and dearness of the royal tobacco makes the fortune of the well-meaning smuggler, who being here, as everywhere, the great corrector of blundering chancellors of exchequers, provides a better and cheaper thing from Gibraltar. [Sidenote: SMUGGLED CIGARS.] The proof of the extent to which his dealings are carried was exemplified in 1828, when many thousand additional hands were obliged to be put on to the manufactories at Seville and Granada, to meet the increased demand occasioned by the impossibility of obtaining supplies from Gibraltar, in consequence of the yellow fever which was then raging there. No offence is more dreadfully punished in Spain than that of tobacco-smuggling, which robs the queen’s pocket--all other robbery is treated as nothing, for her lieges only suffer. The encouragement afforded to the manufacture and smuggling of cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing source of ill blood and ill will between the Spanish and English governments. This most serious evil is contrary to all treaties, injurious to Spain and England alike, and is beneficial only to aliens of the worst character, who form the real plague and sore of Gibraltar. The American and every other nation import their own tobacco, good, bad, and indifferent, into the fortress free of duty, and without repurchasing British produce. It is made into cigars by Genoese, is smuggled into Spain by aliens, in boats under the British flag, which is disgraced by the traffic and exposed to insult from the revenue cutters of Spain, which it cannot in justice expect to have redressed. The Spaniards would have winked at the introduction of English hardware and cottons--objects of necessity, which do not interfere with this, their chief manufacture, and one of the most productive of royal monopolies. There is a wide difference between encouraging real British commerce and this smuggling of foreign cigars, nor can Spain be expected to observe treaties towards us while we infringe them so scandalously and unprofitably on our parts.