James A. Michener

James A. Michener is an author whose best-seller, Chesapeake, was cited in a October, 1978 Tobacco Institute newsletter. The newsletter says the novel:
 * tells of Captain John Smith's futile search in the bay for riches of the Orient. In a poignant passage, it continues: "Disconsolately ...he fell onto a pile of drying leaves and confessed the failure of his grand designs ....'I sought gold and was rewarded with marshy weeds." As he spoke his hand restlessly stroked the leaves upon which he sat--tobacco, brought down the York by Indians for shipment to London. In years to come, bundles and bales and whole shiploads of this weed would move down the rivers of Virginia and Maryland, producing more gold and brocade than even Captain Smith had dreamed of.

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