d by pages, who furnished
them with pipes and tobacco.

About the time of the settlement of Jamestown, in 1607, the
characteristics of a man of fashion were, to wear velvet breeches, with
panes or slashes of silk, an enormous starched ruff, a gilt-handled
sword, and a Spanish dagger: to play at cards or dice in the room of the
groom-porter, and to smoke tobacco in the tilt-yard, or at the
playhouse.

The peers engaged in the trial of the Earls of Essex and Southampton
smoked much while they deliberated on their verdict. It was alleged
against Raleigh that he smoked tobacco on the occasion of the execution
of the Earl of Essex, in contempt of him; and it was perhaps in allusion
to this circumstance that when Raleigh was passing through London to
Winchester, to stand his trial, he was followed by the execrations of
the populace, and pelted with tobacco-pipes, stones, and mud. On the
scaffold, however, he protested that during the execution of Essex he
had retired far off into the armory, where Essex could not see him,
although he saw Essex, and shed tears for him. Raleigh used tobacco on
the morning of his own execution.

As early as the year 1610 tobacco was in general use in England. The
manner of using it was partly to inhale the smoke and blow it out
through the nostrils, and this was called "drinking tobacco," and this
practice continued until the latter part of the reign of James I. In
1614 the number of tobacco-houses in or near London was estimated at
seven thousand. In 1620 was chartered the Society of Tobacco-pipe Makers
of London; they bore on their shield a tobacco-plant in full blossom.

The _Counterblast to Tobacco_, by King James I, if in some parts absurd
and puerile, yet is not without a good deal of just reasoning and good
sense; some fair hits are made in it, and those who have ridiculed that
production might find it not easy to controvert some of its views. King
James, in his _Counterblast_, does not omit the opportunity of
expressing his hatred toward Sir Walter Raleigh. He continued his
opposition to tobacco as long as he lived, and in his ordinary
conversation oftentimes argued and inveighed against it.

The Virginia tobacco in early times was imported into England in the
leaf, in bundles; the Spanish or West Indian tobacco in balls. Molasses
or other liquid preparation was used in preparing those balls. Tobacco
was then, as now, adulterated in various ways. The nice retailer kept it
in what w