Sir Frances Drake, the first son of Old England to look to the borders of the Peaceful Ocean,--bring forward Ralph Lane, starving pearl-hunter of Roanoke Island, whom you rescued. Answer, Lane, you who introduced the Indian custom of "drinking tobacco" into your country! Noble prisoner of the Tower,--chivalrous subject of Her Sovereign Majesty, Elizabeth, in whose honor was named the sunny land which grew the herb of enchantment,--you who made the herb fashionable in Britain,--Sir Walter Raleigh, answer to roll call! Silversmith, maker of the pipe of silver of the Queen's Favorite, and of the scales that enabled him to ascertain the weight of the smoke of a pipeful of tobacco, and win his majesty's wager,--answer to your name! You, whose name, by courtesy of the great Swedish student of nature, the Indian's weed bears,--John Nicot, of the Country of Charlemagne, answer roll-call! And you, Madame, of the day-fair face, and the night-black heart, wife to one King, and mother to another,--huntress, builder of the Tuileries,--you, at whose feet lie the victims of that mid-summer night of horror, the eve of St. Bartholomew's Day,--you, Madame, first snuff-taker of Europe, and christener of the Herbe de La Reine,--Catherine de Medici,--murderess,--answer to roll-call! Mariners of the Mediterranean, Merchants of Venice, Genoan tradesmen,--ye who enlightened the Levant, and the wide Continent to the borders of the deepest ocean, as to the intoxicating delights of the plant solanaceae,--your names are called! Hear all ye, who by might of Sovereign rule, of priestly power, and example, have endeavored to drive the weed of the West from your domains,--answer to your names! Unhappy prisoner of St. Helena, who in your day of power, secured to your Government the exclusive right of making and selling tobacco,--answer to your name! Governor of Virginia,--compelled to adjust the proportion between the corn and the tobacco to be raised in the cleared lands,--when the colonists, mad with thoughts of gold, neglected the culture of that which they could eat, for that which they could sell,--Sir Thomas Dale,--answer roll-call! Ye one hundred young women of "agreeable persons and respectable character," whose over seas passage was paid with the tobacco of your husbands-to-be,--answer to your names! All ye vast multitude concerned in the making of the past history of tobacco,--answer to roll-call! They have answered, friend! they have passed beyond our vision, and yet the tobacco shadowed highway is traversed by a great throng. Who are they? They are the present day consumers of the weed of the red children of the woods,--they are the subjects of Edward, men of the Fatherland, of France, of Spain, of the cold barren steppes of Russia, of the parched plains of Africa, of the Americas, and the islands of the seas; soldiers, sailors, civilians, barbarians, infidels, Christians, the earth over, and their number is hundreds of millions!