Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and CommerceBillings, E. R.
History
Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce
Billings, E. R.
Tobacco -- History; Tobacco industry -- History; Tobacco use
In 1636 Charles appointed Sir John Harvey to be continued governor of
the Plantation. In 1643 parliament laid a tax for the year 1644,
calling it Excise, and also laid a duty of four shillings per pound on
foreign, and two shillings per pound on English tobacco. From what has
already been written, it will be seen that both King James and his son
Charles I. enacted the most stringent laws against its importation,
nearly suppressing the trade, which caused the English farmers to
cultivate it for home use; but another law was now added to suppress
its growth on English soil.
Fairholt in speaking of the hostility of King James to the plant says:
"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 suppressed the importation
of tobacco the English 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 fruitful Kingdom.' 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 carried on with their planters to the
injury of the British colonists.
"Its use increased in spite of all legislative laws and
enactments 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 monopolized, the consumers
oppressed, importation diminished, and the London Company of
Virginia traders ultimately ruined. Those who are fond of
excusing the evil acts of one of the worst of English Kings,
pretend to see James' care for his subjects' health and
wealth in these restrictions, totally regardless of the fact
that James cared for neither when the monopoly brought large
sums into his own pocket."
In 1632 Charles I. granted to Sir George Calvert (who about this time
was made Lord Baltimore) the territory now known as Maryland; soon
after receiving the grant he died, when his son took the grant in his
own name. The next year he sailed from England with two hundred
persons and settled in his new possessions. The colony from the first,
prospered far better than the colony of Virginia and soon laid the
foundation of a strong and substantial government. Like the Virginians
they soon engaged in the cultivation of tobacco which seemed as well
adapted to the soil as the other products, corn and English wheat. The
Indians were found here as in the Plantation of Virginia planting
tobacco as they did Indian corn and cultivating little patches of it
near their wigwams choosing the most fertile soil the females of the
tribe being the actual cultivators.
[Illustration: Natives growing tobacco.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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