The ambassadors of the Duke of Holstein, who visited Moscow in 1634, relate that they were eye-witnesses of a public exhibition of this kind, where eight men and one woman were punished with the knout for selling tobacco. By way of palliating this Russian atrocity, they were informed that houses in Moscow had been set on fire by smokers falling asleep and dropping their lighted pipes. Oppression, however, like persecution in another sphere, brought succour to the smoker; for, despite every form of opposition and punishment, men quietly went on comforting themselves with the weed, until at last their bitterest foes became their best friends, and gratefully acknowledged the benign sway of St Nicotine. There is a peculiar interest, not without instruction, in observing the change that came over governments with regard to the consumption of tobacco. One after another they began to recognise a new and most useful virtue in the outcast weed, one which had too long remained hidden. Straightway they took the exotic under their paternal protection, and handsomely were they rewarded for their acknowledgment of her value to mankind. By-and-by, many an anxious custodian of an empty treasury came to look upon St Nicotine as a divinity … that cures, a vapour that affords Content more solid than the smile of lords, and as they gathered in their golden harvest of taxation, blessed the name of their benefactress. In illustration of this change may be mentioned the action which Peter the Great took with the view of establishing tobacco culture and manufacture in his dominions. In the tenth volume of M. de Martin’s magnificent work on the treaties and conventions concluded by Russia with other nations from 1710 to 1801, there is a paragraph which states that Peter the Great, having determined that tobacco should be cultivated and manufactured in Russia, sought in England the necessary workmen, machinery, implements, etc., for transmission to Moscow. Englishmen knew little at that time of the remote Tsardom of Muscovy, but on learning the wants and wealth of the monarchy, enterprising merchants were not slow to undertake the performance of all that was required of them. Accordingly, a party of skilled workmen, with engineers, was soon on its way to Moscow with all necessary material for setting up and working a tobacco factory. When, later, the English Government was apprised of what had been done, ‘Her Majesty, Queen Anne, in Council, was pleased to manifest her profound dissatisfaction, especially in that they proceeded to the realm of Moscow to the cultivation of the native products of her Majesty’s dominions, and in that they have brought to Moscow for this purpose the requisite English workmen and material, which is contrary to the interests and usages of the kingdom of Great Britain.’ Orders were immediately sent to our envoy at Moscow to not only return the workmen