"Warren Hastings East Indyman, off Gravesend.
This comes hopein to find you in good health as it leaves me safe anckor'd here yesterday at 4 P. M. arter a pleasant voyage tolerable short and a few squalls.--Dear Tom--hopes to find poor old father stout, and am quite out of pig-tail.--Sights of pig-tail at Gravesend, but unfortinly not fit for a dog to chor. Dear Tom, Captain's boy will bring you this, and put pig-tail in his pocket when bort. Best in London at the Black Boy in 7 diles, where go acks for best pig-tail--pound a pig-tail will do, and am short of shirts. Dear Tom, as for shirts ony took 2 whereof one is quite wored out and tuther most, but don't forget the pig-tail, as I a'n't had a quid to chor never since Thursday. Dear Tom, as for the shirts, your size will do, only longer. I liks um long--get one at present; best at Tower-hill, and cheap, but be particler to go to 7 diles for the pig-tail at the Black Boy, and Dear Tom, acks for pound best pig-tail, and let it be good. Captain's boy will put the pig-tail in his pocket, he likes pig-tail, so ty it up. Dear Tom, shall be up about Monday there or thereabouts. Not so perticuler for the shirt as the present can be washed, but don't forget the pig-tail without fail, so am your loving brother."
Treating of the milder virtues of tobacco, who ever knew a smoker--one of your twenty years' standing,--ill tempered; or a veteran snuff-taker, who did not occasionally give utterance to witty sayings?--the thing were against reason. In conclusion, what can we say more for thee, omnipotent, prolific herb! than in the inspired lines of thy true admirer Byron?
Sublime tobacco, which from east to west, Cheers the tar's labours or the Turkman's rest; Which on the moslems' ottomans divides His hours, and rivals opium and his brides: Magnificent in Stamboul, but less grand, Though not less lov'd, in Wapping or the Strand. Divine in hookas; glorious in a pipe, When tipped with amber, mellow, rich and ripe; Like other charmers, wooing thy caress, More dazzling fair and glaring in full dress; Yet thy true lovers more admire, by far, Thy naked beauties--give me a cigar?
Of the properties attributable to the plant in the _Materia Medica_, a variety of opinions prevail, and have done, indeed, since its first appearance in the civilized portion of the globe. It certainly cannot but strike the reader as a fact to be very greatly lamented, that science should be so unfixed, even in this much boasted-of-enlightened æra, that some medical men should be found to ascribe every bad and pernicious quality to the use of tobacco; and others, equally celebrated for their professional knowledge, recommend it as a panacea for many ills. Reflection makes this still more dreadful, when we consider these are the men to whose abilities we are frequently compelled to look up, for the preservation of our healths and lives. It would be well, indeed, if this lamentable difference of opinion among the facult existed only in reference to our present subject.