# A Counterblaste to Tobacco *King James VI and I. London: Robert Barker, 1604. A short anti-tobacco pamphlet, among the earliest in English.* > I read the full text in the Wikisource transcription (an 1884 reprint, not the 1604 original) and the other sources linked below. I did not see the 1604 printing. Spelling in quotations is as in that transcription. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *A Counterblaste to Tobacco* (Wikisource spells it "A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco"; the 1672 printing in the Library of Virginia is titled *King James, His Counterblast to Tobacco*) | | Author | James VI of Scotland and I of England and Ireland (1566-1625) | | First edition | London: Robert Barker, 1604 ([New York Public Library, Arents Collection](https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/beginnings/item/3556)) | | Authorship | Appeared anonymously and "was quickly, and correctly, presumed to be James's handiwork" (Susan Campbell Anderson, [*A Matter of Authority*](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/283701r0)) | | Length / ISBN | Not applicable to the 1604 pamphlet; I found no modern print edition with a verified ISBN | | Form | Short prose treatise, written in Early Modern English ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco)) | | Cover | None checked | **Where it came up.** - Video: [The Epicurean Paradox: Smoking, Drinking, and the Brutal Truth About Pleasure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm6HW8JkqE), *The HitchPoint*. - Mention: [24:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm6HW8JkqE&t=1473s). The video note records the *Counterblaste* (1604) and a duty reported at 4,000%. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/The HitchPoint/The Epicurean Paradox Smoking, Drinking, and the Brutal Truth About Pleasure]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference pages** - Wikipedia: [A Counterblaste to Tobacco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco); [James VI and I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I). - Library of Virginia: [Document Bank of Virginia item](https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/educator-resources/dbva/items/show/124) and its [PDF excerpt](https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/educator-resources/dbva/files/original/2e14513db1261cffc5307218fe4347c9.pdf) (the PDF is a teaching excerpt from the 1672 printing). - NYPL: [first-edition copy, Arents Collection](https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/beginnings/item/3556). - Scholarship listed by Wikipedia: Susan Campbell Anderson, "A matter of authority: James I and the tobacco war" (*Comitatus* 29.1, 1998); Michael Ziser, "Sovereign Remedies: Natural Authority and the 'Counterblaste to Tobacco'" (*William and Mary Quarterly* 62.4, 2005). - Open Library, Google Books, WorldCat: not checked. **Where to get it** - **Free full text, legal:** [Wikisource, *A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco*](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco), a proofread transcription of an 1884 limited reprint (Unwin Brothers, printers), with editorial footnotes. Wikisource marks the work public domain worldwide because the author died long ago (James died in 1625; the Cornell chart makes anything before 1931 public domain in the US). I found no Project Gutenberg copy (gutendex search returned none). - **Print / e-book:** no modern edition identified, so unchecked. It is often reprinted in anthologies; I did not verify any. - **Audiobook:** none found (a LibriVox catalog search for "counterblaste" and "tobacco" returned no results). Audible not checked. - **Libraries:** [Libby search](https://libbyapp.com/search/query-counterblaste%20to%20tobacco) and [Hoopla search](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=counterblaste%20to%20tobacco); availability unconfirmed. ## 3. Author biography **James VI and I** (19 June 1566 - 27 March 1625), King of Scotland from 24 July 1567 and of England and Ireland from 24 March 1603 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I)). - Only son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Lord Darnley; acceded to the Scottish throne at thirteen months; raised Protestant; took full control of his government in 1583. Married Anne of Denmark in 1589. - Succeeded Elizabeth I in 1603. Faced the Gunpowder Plot (1605) and conflicts with the English Parliament. His reign in Scotland, 57 years and 246 days, was the longest of any Scottish monarch. - A prolific writer: *Daemonologie* (1597), *The True Law of Free Monarchies* (1598), *Basilikon Doron* (1599), and the *Counterblaste* (1604, listed by Wikipedia as "a strong denunciation of tobacco"). He sponsored the Bible translation later named for him. Wikipedia says he personally supervised the torture of women accused of witchcraft in Scotland. - The Anderson article argues that "it is not clear that James hated tobacco at all": she reads the pamphlet and the tax as political strategy and notes that James closed letters to Lord Cecil with affectionate salutations around the same time. Treat that as one scholar's argument. ## 4. Author interviews and talks None: the author died in 1625. Closest items: - Susan Campbell Anderson, [*A Matter of Authority: James I and the Tobacco War*](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/283701r0) (the eScholarship page opened and its opening was read; I did not read the whole article). - Michael Ziser, "Sovereign Remedies" (2005): listed by Wikipedia, not opened. ## 5. Summary **Thesis.** Smoking is a "filthy novelty" copied from "barbarous" Native Americans, supported by bad medical reasoning, harmful to body and purse, and unworthy of English gentlemen. The preface frames it as a trifle used to show the king's care for his subjects' welfare ("the fume of an idle braine, may serue for a sufficient battery against so fumous and feeble an enemy"). **Outline** (the pamphlet has no numbered chapters; this follows the Wikisource transcription in order): 1. **To the Reader.** The body politic, like the human body, has its own "naturall infirmities": peace and wealth have bred sluggishness. It is the king's task, as "proper Phisician of his Politicke-body", to purge them by example and correction. 2. **Origin of the custom.** Tobacco was first found by "barbarous Indians" as a preservative against the pox, so smoking came from the same people who gave Christendom the disease, and England should not imitate them. James compares it with going naked or preferring glass beads to gold. The text brought in "two or three Sauage men" along with the custom, and he blames the introduction on a "first Author" who was "generally hated" (the 1884 editor's footnote names Sir Walter Raleigh; the original text does not). 3. **Four arguments for tobacco, answered.** Two from "reason": (a) the brain is cold and wet, so hot dry things are good for it (answered with analogies, e.g. a cake of lead for the liver or a stone on the heart, and the claim it would only make a man run mad); (b) smoke purges phlegm (answered with the analogy of rising vapours becoming clouds and rain). Two from "experience": (c) that the whole people would not like it unless it were good (answered: people follow fashion, like imported clothes); (d) that many are cured by it and none harmed (answered: this mistakes "Non causam pro causa", since a sick man who takes tobacco at the height of his illness may recover naturally; the patient's belief itself helps; one cure cannot serve contrary diseases; and the habit becomes "alteram naturam", second nature, so users cannot do without it, like an old drunkard). 4. **Sins and vanities.** The custom is a sin against God and a vanity before the world; it makes the English "wondered at by all forraine civil Nations". Waste: some gentry spend "three, some foure hundred pounds a yeere vpon this precious stinke". 5. **Manners and health.** Smoke at meals fouls the dishes ("Smoke becomes a kitchin far better then a Dining chamber"), and a husband should not make his wife corrupt her "sweete breath" or live in "a perpetuall stinking torment" (passive smoking, per Wikipedia). It makes men unfit for war: in earlier glorious battles "there was no word of Tobacco". 6. **Closing sentence.** The famous summation: "A custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." **Key ideas.** Tobacco as imported fashion; medicine by humours (cold/hot, wet/dry); the argument from popularity; early complaint about second-hand smoke; moral argument about waste and national weakness. The text's language about Native peoples is openly contemptuous (for example "beastly Indians", "slaves to the Spaniards"); it reflects 1604 prejudice and is not a factual account. **Legacy** (Wikipedia). In 1604 James authorised Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, to levy a tax and tariff of six shillings and eight pence per pound imported. In 1624 he created a royal monopoly on tobacco instead, because demand persisted and the colonies depended on it. Wikipedia says Jeremy Bentham later cited the *Counterblaste* as an example of antipathy run wild; I have not yet checked this in Bentham's text. ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **supported**. The date, authorship (by presumption) and the large tax increase are well attested; the only wrinkle is how the percentage is stated. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | James I wrote the *Counterblaste* in 1604 | Supported | Wikipedia; NYPL (London: Robert Barker, 1604). It was published anonymously and attributed to him from the start (Anderson) | | He raised the tobacco duty by "4,000 percent" in 1604 | Supported, with an arithmetic caveat | [Library of Virginia](https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/educator-resources/dbva/items/show/124), NYPL and Anderson all say 4,000 percent; Anderson gives the change as 2d. to 6s. 8d. per pound. 6s. 8d. is 80 pence, so 2d. to 80d. is a 40-fold rise, which is a 3,900% increase or 4,000% of the old rate. The British History Online calendar for August-October 1604 opened and contains tobacco-duty entries, but I did not verify the amounts there | | The tax did not stop smoking | Supported | Library of Virginia; NYPL; Wikipedia ("persistently high demand") | | James later took the trade into the Crown's hands | Supported | NYPL says he nationalised the trade; Wikipedia says a royal monopoly in 1624 | | James banned tobacco | Contradicted | Library of Virginia: English leaders "did not make the sale and smoking of tobacco illegal" | | It is among the earliest anti-smoking publications | Supported | Wikipedia ("one of the earliest known anti-smoking publications"); NYPL ("one of the earliest examples of anti-tobacco literature") | | He complained about passive smoking | Supported | Wikipedia; the text (wives, dining-table smoke) | | James personally hated tobacco | Disputed | The pamphlet is vehement, but Anderson argues it is "not clear that James hated tobacco at all" | | Tobacco is dangerous to the lungs | Supported by modern evidence; the book's reasons are humoral | James's claim is "dangerous to the Lungs"; I did not cite medical sources, and his arguments use the four-humours theory | ## 7. Citations and references - King James I, *A Counterblaste to Tobacco* (London: Robert Barker, 1604), read in [Wikisource's transcription of an 1884 reprint](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco). - Susan Campbell Anderson, [A Matter of Authority: James I and the Tobacco War](https://escholarship.org/uc/item/283701r0), *Comitatus* 29.1 (1998). - [Library of Virginia, Document Bank of Virginia](https://www.lva.virginia.gov/collections/educator-resources/dbva/items/show/124). - [NYPL, Anti tobacco treatise by King James I](https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/beginnings/item/3556). - [British History Online, Calendar of State Papers Domestic, James I, vol. 9, Aug-Oct 1604](https://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/jas1/1603-10/pp140-163). - Wikipedia: [A Counterblaste to Tobacco](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Counterblaste_to_Tobacco); [James VI and I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_VI_and_I). - Cornell University Library, [Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States](https://guides.library.cornell.edu/ld.php?content_id=83345575). - Video: [The Epicurean Paradox: Smoking, Drinking, and the Brutal Truth About Pleasure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPm6HW8JkqE), *The HitchPoint*.