An Essay on the Influence of Tobacco upon

ESSAY ON TOBACCO.
In the great kingdom of living nature, man is the only animal that seeks to poison or destroy his own instincts,
to turn topsy-turvy the laws of his being, and to make himself as unlike, as possible, that which he was
obviously designed to be.
No satisfactory solution of this extraordinary propensity has been given, short of a reference to that--
"first disobedience and the fruit Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste Brought death into the world and
all our wo, With loss of Eden."
While the myriads of sentient beings, spread over the earth, adhere, with unyielding fidelity, to the laws of
their several existences, man exerts his superior intellect in attempting to outwit nature, and to show that she
has made an important mistake, in his own case. Not satisfied with the symmetry and elegance of form given
him by his Creator, he transforms himself into a hideous monster, or copies upon his own person, the
proportions of some disgusting creature, far down in the scale of animal being. Not content with loving one
thing and loathing another, he perseveres in his attempts to make bitter sweet, and sweet bitter, till nothing but
the shadow is left, of his primitive relishes and aversions. This is strikingly exemplified in the habitual use of
the narcotic or poisonous vegetables.
History.
Tobacco is generally regarded as having originated in America. Its name appears to have been derived from
Tabaco, a province of Yucatan, in Mexico, from which place it is said to have been first sent to Spain; or, as
some assert, though with less probability, from an instrument named Tabaco, employed in Hispaniola in
smoking this article.
Cortez sent a specimen of it to the king of Spain in 1519. Sir Francis Drake is said to have introduced it into
England about the year 1560, and, not far front the same time, John Nicot carried it to France; and Italy is
indebted to the Cardinal Santa Croce for its first appearance in that country.Traces of an ancient custom of smoking dried herbs having been observed, it has been suggested that tobacco
might have been in use in Asia, long before the discovery of America. The fact, however, that this plant
retains, under slight modifications, the name of tobacco, in a large number of Asiatic as well as European
dialects, renders almost certain the commonly received opinion, that it emanated from this country, and from
this single origin has found its way into every region of the earth, where it is at present known. If this be the
fact, the Western hemisphere has relieved itself of a part of the obligation due to the Eastern, for the discovery
and diffusion of distilled spirit.
Early in the history of our country, the cultivation and use of tobacco were by no means confined to central
America. In Hawkins' voyage of 1655, the use of this article in Florida is thus described: "The Floridians,
when they travele, have a kind of herbe dryed, which, with a cane and an earthen cup in the end, with fire and
the dryed herbes put together, do sucke thorow the cane the smoke thereof, which smoke satisfieth their
hunger." Still earlier, viz. in 1535, Cartier found it in Canada: "There groweth a certain kind of herbe, whereof
in sommer, they make great provision for all the yeere, making great account of it, and onely men use it; and
first they cause it to be dried in the sunne, then weare it about their necks wrapped in a little beaste's skinne,
made like a little bagge, with a hollow peece of stone or wood like a pipe; then when they please they make
powder of it, and then put it in one of the ends of said cornet or pipe, and laying a cole of fire upon it, at the
other end sucke so long, that they fill their bodies full of smoke, till that it cometh out of their mouth and
nostrils, even as out of the tonnele of a chimney."
In Great Britain the progress of the custom of using tobacco was not unobserved. The civil and ecclesiastical
powers were marshalled against it, and Popish anathemas and Royal edicts with the severest penalties, not
excepting death itself, were issued. In the reigns of Elizabeth, of James and of his successor Charles, the use
and importation of tobacco were made subjects of legislation. In addition to his Royal authority, the worthy
and zealous king James threw the whole weight of his learning and logic against it, in his famous
'Counterblaste to Tobacco.' He speaks of it as being "a sinneful and shameful lust"--as "a branch of
drunkennesse"--as "disabling both persons and goods"--and in conclusion declares it to be "a custome
loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black and
stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomlesse."
In the English colonies of North America, it is no wonder that legislation was resorted to, for the purpose of
regulating the use of this article, when it had become an object of so much value, as that "one hundred and
twenty pounds of good leaf tobacco" would purchase for a Virginian planter a good and choice wife just
imported from England. In one of the provincial governments of New England, a law was passed, forbidding
any person "under twenty-one years of age, or any other, that hath not already accustomed himself to the use
thereof, to take any tobacko untill he hath brought a certificate under the hands of some who are approved for
knowledge and skill in phisick, that it is useful for him, and also that hee hath received a lycense from the
Courte for the same. And for the regulating of those, who either by their former taking it, have to their own
apprehensions, made it necessary to them, or uppon due advice are persuaded to the use thereof,--
"It is ordered, that no man within this colonye, after the publication hereof, shall take any tobacko publiquely
in the streett, high wayes or any barne yardes, or uppon training dayes, in any open places, under the penalty
of six-pence for each offence against this order, in any the particulars thereof, to bee paid without gainsaying,
uppon conviction, by the testimony of one witness, that is without just exception, before any one magistrate.
And the constables in the severall townes are required to make presentment to each particular courte, of such
as they doe understand, and can evict to bee transgressors of this order."
In the old Massachusetts colony laws, is an act with a penalty for those, who should "smoke tobacco within
twenty poles of any house, or shall take tobacco at any Inn or victualling house, except in a private room, so as that neither the master nor any guest shall take offence thereat."
In the early records of Harvard University is a regulation ordering that "no scholar shall take tobacco unlesspermitted by the President, with the consent of his parents, on good reason first given by a physician, and then
only in a sober and private manner."
At a town-meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. in 1662, it was "ordered that a cage be built, or some other means
devised, at the discretion of the Selectmen, to punish such as take tobacco on the Lord's day, in time of
publick service." But it does not appear that this measure had all the effect intended, for, ten years afterwards,
the town "voted that if any person shall smoke tobacco in the meeting-house during religious service, he shall
pay a fine of five shillings for the use of the town."
But all these forces have been vanquished, and this one weed is the conqueror. Regardless of collegial and
town regulations, of provincial laws, and of royal, parliamentary and papal power, tobacco has kept on its
way, till it has encircled the earth, and now holds in slavery a larger number of human minds than any other
herb.