As early as 1621 it was moved in the House of Commons by Sir William Stroud, that he "would have tobacco banished wholly out of the kingdom, and that it may not be brought in from any part nor used amongst us," and Sir Grey Palmes "that if tobacco be not banished it will overthrow one hundred thousand men in England; for now it is so common that he hath seen ploughmen take it as they are at plough." At a later period of the century, so inveterate had the practice become, that an order appears on the journals of the House, "That no member of the House do presume to smoke tobacco in the gallery, or at the table of the House, sitting at committees." Indeed we are told by M. Jorevin, who visited Worcester in the reign of Charles II, put up at the "Stag inn," and published his doings in the "Antiquarian Repertory," that the women smoked as well as the men. As early as the end of the sixteenth century, complaints were made of this "imitation of the manners of a savage people," as it was feared that by this practice Englishmen would degenerate into a barbarous state. So great an incentive was it thought to drunkenness, that it was strictly forbidden to be taken in any alehouse in the time of James I, and his Majesty exhausted much ponderous wit in attempting to cry down the weed; his celebrated performance, "A Counterblast to Tobacco," denominating it "the invention of Satan," and the custom of smoking as "loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black stinking fume thereof nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless." In 1659, Wm. George, of Eckington, was indicted at the Worcester County Sessions "for planting, setting, growing, making, and curing tobacco there," on 400 poles of land, and a fine of £400 inflicted--the informer being Wm. Harrison, of Pershore. Ralph Huntingdon, of Upton Snodsbury, John Redding, of Kempsey, Humphrey Tay and Rd. Beddard, of Eckington, and Edmund Baugh, of Pensham, were similarly fined. In the above-mentioned year it was ordered "that no person plant tobacco after January 1, 1660, according to Act of Parliament, 12th Charles II, within England, to sell, upon forfeiture of the same or value thereof, or 40s., for every rode or pole so planted, set, or sown, one moiety to the King and the other to the informer; not to extend to physick gardens in the university."