From Chapter 2:
Sir Francis Vere, in the account of his services by sea and land which he wrote about 1606, mentions that on an expedition to the Azores in 1597, the Earl of Essex, waiting for news of the enemy at St. Michael, "called for tobacco ... and so on horseback, with those Noblemen and Gentlemen on foot beside him, took tobacco, whilst I was telling his Lordship of the men I had sent forth, and orders I had given." Presently came the sound of guns, which "made his Lordship cast his pipe from him, and listen to the shooting."

From Chapter 5:
These seventeenth-century pipes were largely made in Holland of pipe-clay imported from England—to the disgust and loss of English pipe-makers. In 1663 the Company of tobacco-Pipe Makers petitioned Parliament "to forbid the export of tobacco pipe clay, since by the manufacture of pipes in Holland their trade is much damaged." Further, they asked for "the confirmation of their charter of government so as to empower them to regulate abuses, as many persons engage in the trade without licence." The Company's request was granted; but in the next year they again found it necessary to come to Parliament, showing "the great improvement in their trade since their incorporation, 17 James I, and their threatened ruin because cooks, bakers, and ale-house keepers and others make pipes, but so unskilfully that they are brought into disesteem; they request to be comprehended in the Statute of Labourers of 5 Elizabeth, so that none may follow the trade who have not been apprentices seven years."

From Chapter 1:
Who first smoked a pipe of tobacco in England? The honour is divided among several claimants. It has often been stated that Captain William Middleton or Myddelton (son of Richard Middleton, Governor of Denbigh Castle), a Captain Price and a Captain Koet were the first who smoked publicly in London, and that folk flocked from all parts to see them; and it is usually added that pipes were not then invented, so they smoked the twisted leaf, or cigars. This account first appeared in one of the volumes of Pennant's "Tour in Wales." But the late Professor Arber long ago pointed out that the remark as to the mode of smoking by cigars and not by pipes was simply Pennant's speculation. The authority for the rest of the story is a paper in the Sebright MSS., which, in an account of William Middleton, has the remark: "It is sayed, that he, with Captain Thomas Price of Plâsyollin and one Captain Koet, were the first who smoked, or (as they called it) drank tobacco publickly in London; and that the Londoners flocked from all parts to see them." No date is named, and no further particulars are available.

From Chapter 6:
The practice of selling tobacco in small paper packets was common, and moralists naturally had something to say about the fate of an author's work, when the leaves of his books found their ultimate use as wrappers for the weed. "For as no mortal author," says Addison, "in the ordinary fate and vicissitude of things, knows to what use his works may, some time or other, be applied, a man may often meet with very celebrated names in a paper of tobacco. I have lighted my pipe more than once with the writings of a prelate."