The truth probably is that whoever actually smoked the first pipe, it was Raleigh who brought the practice into common use.  It is highly probable, also, that Raleigh was initiated in the art of smoking by Thomas Hariot.  This was made clear, I think, by the late Dr. Brushfield in the second of the valuable papers on matters connected with the life and achievements of Sir Walter, which he contributed under the title of “Raleghana” to the “Transactions” of the Devonshire Association.  Hariot was sent out by Raleigh for the specific purpose of inquiring into and reporting upon the natural productions of Virginia.  He returned in 1586, and in 1588 published the results of his researches in a thin quarto with an extremely long-winded title beginning “A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia” and continuing for a further 138 words.

In this “Report” Hariot says of the tobacco plant:  “There is an herbe which is sowed a part by itselfe and is called by the inhabitants Vppowoc:  In the West Indies it hath divers names, according to the severall places and countries where it groweth and is used:  The Spaniardes generally call it Tobacco.  The leaves thereof being dried and brought into powder:  they use to take the fume or smoke thereof by sucking it through pipes made of claie into their stomacke and heade:  from whence it purgeth superfluous fleame and other grosse humors, openeth all the pores and passages of the body:  by which meanes the use thereof, not only preserveth the body from obstructions:  but if also any be, so that they have not beane of too long continuance, in short time breaketh them:  wherby their bodies are notably preserved in health, and know not many greevous diseases wherewithall wee in England are oftentimes afflicted.”

So far Hariot’s “Report” regarded tobacco from the medicinal point of view only; but it is important to note that he goes on to describe his personal experience of the practice of smoking in words that suggest the pleasurable nature of the experience.  He says:  “We ourselves during the time we were there used to suck it after their maner, as also since our returne, and have found maine [? manie] rare and wonderful experiments of the vertues thereof:  of which the relation woulde require a volume by itselfe:  the use of it by so manie of late, men and women of great calling as else, and some learned Physitians also, is sufficient witness.”

Who can doubt that Hariot, in reporting direct to Sir Walter Raleigh, showed his employer how “to suck it after their maner”?

All the evidence agrees that whoever taught Raleigh, it was Raleigh’s example that brought smoking into notice and common use.  Long before his death in 1618 it had become fashionable, as we shall see, in all ranks of society.  He is said to have smoked a pipe on the morning of his execution, before he went to the scaffold, a tradition which is quite credible.