Note 292 — Chapter XVIII · COFFEE-HOUSES AND TAVERNS.
Reading edition
These coffee-houses sold alcoholic liquors as well as coffee; a fact which is somewhat whimsically illustrated in the following extract from a letter of Bishop Trelawney to Bishop Sprat, July 20, 1702 or 3.[292] 'I had a particular obligation to Burnett, and will publicly thank him in print (among other matters I have to say to him, and to his Articles against our religion) for his causing it to be spread by his emissaries that I was drunk at Salisbury the 30th of January; whereas the Major General,[293] Captain Culleford, a very honest Clergyman, and the people of the Inn (which was a coffee house too) can swear I drank nothing but two dishes of Coffee; and, indeed I had not stopped at all, but to enable my children by a very slender bait, to hold out to Blandford, where I dined at 6 that night.'