inest tobaccos
known,[10] and large quantities were shipped to Spain and Portugal.
The early voyagers little dreamed, however, of the vast proportions to
be assumed by the trade in the plant which they had discovered, and
which in time proved a source of the greatest profit not only to the
European colonies, but to the dealers in the Old World.

[Footnote 10: Trinidad tobacco was then considered the
finest.]

Helps, treating on this same subject, says:

"It is interesting to observe the way in which a new product
is introduced to the notice of the Old World--a product that
was hereafter to become, not only an unfailing source of
pleasure to a large section of the whole part of mankind,
from the highest to the lowest, but was also to distinguish
itself as one of those commodities for revenue, which are
the delight of statesmen, the great financial resource of
modern nations, and which afford a means of indirect
taxation that has perhaps nourished many a war, and
prevented many a revolution. The importance, financially and
commercially speaking, of this discovery of tobacco--a
discovery which in the end proved more productive to the
Spanish crown than that of the gold mines of the Indies."

Spain and Portugal in all their colonies fostered and encouraged its
cultivation and then at once ranked as the best producers and dealers
in tobacco. The varieties grown by them in the West Indies and South
America were highly esteemed and commanded much higher prices than
that grown by the English and Dutch colonies. In 1620, however, the
Dutch merchants were the largest wholesale tobacconists in Europe, and
the people of Holland, generally, the greatest consumers of the weed.

The expedition of 1584, under the auspices of Sir Walter Raleigh,
which resulted in the discovery of Virginia, also introduced the
tobacco plant, among other novelties, to the attention of the English.
Hariot,[11] who sailed with this expedition, says of the plant:

[Footnote 11: A brief and true Report of the New Found
Land of Virginia (London, 1588).]

"There is an herb which is sowed apart by itselfe, and is
called by the inhabitants uppowoc. In the West Indies it
hath divers names, according to the severall places and
countries where it groweth and is used; the Spaniards
generally call it Tobacco. The le