Note 20 — PART THE FIRST.

By an act made this year, the duties of Excise on malt liquor, cyder, perry, mead, spirits, or strong waters, coffee, tea, sherbet, and chocolate, were settled on the King during his life. Then it was that Coffee, Tea, and Chocolate, were first mentioned in the statute book. Noorthouck, in his History of London, remarks, that King Charles II. issued a proclamation for shutting up the coffee-houses, &c. about a month after he had dined with the Corporation of London, at Guildhall, on their Lord-Mayor’s day, Oct. 29, 1675. At this feast the King afforded the Citizens abundant matter for animadversion, in which they indulged themselves so much to his dissatisfaction, and that of his cabal ministry, that a proclamation was issued December 20, for shutting up and suppressing all coffee-houses; “because, in such houses, and by occasion of the meeting of disaffected persons in them, divers false, malicious, and scandalous reports were devised and read abroad, to the defamation of his Majesty’s government, and to the disturbance of the quiet and peace of the realm.” The opinions of the judges were taken on this great point of stopping people’s tongues, when they sagely resolved, “that retailing of Coffee and Tea might be an innocent trade; but as it was used to nourish sedition, spread lies, and scandalize great men, it might also be a common nuisance.” In short, on a petition of the merchants and retailers of Coffee and Tea, permission was granted to keep open the coffee-houses until the 24th of June next, under an admonition, that the masters of them should prevent all scandalous papers, books, and libels, from being read in them; and hinder every person from declaring, uttering, or divulging all manner of false or scandalous reports against government or the ministers thereof. Thus, by a refinement of policy, the simple manufacturer of a dish of Coffee or Tea was constituted licenser of books, corrector of manners, and arbiter of the truth or falsehood of political intelligence over every company he entertained! And here the matter ended. Chap. 15.

In May 1784 an act was passed, called the Commutation Act, “for repealing the several duties on Tea, and for granting to his Majesty other duties in lieu thereof; and also several duties on inhabited houses.”