The Wine Acts of Car. II. were those known as 12 Charles and 22 & 23 Charles. Early in his reign he issued that remarkable proclamation, which could not but reflect on his favourite companions and strongly mark the moral disorders of those depraved times.[163] It is against ‘vicious, debauch’d, and profane persons,’ who are thus described:—
A sort of men of whom we are sufficiently ashamed, who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses, and debauches, giving no other evidence of their affection to us but in drinking our health, and inveighing against all others who are not of their own dissolute temper; and who in truth have more discredited our cause by the license of their manners and lives, than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not; and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties, which laws cannot well provide against, which may, by the example and severity of virtuous men, be easily discountenanced and by degrees suppressed.
Blackstone, speaking of the king’s ordinary revenue, observes that a seventh branch might also be computed to have arisen from wine licences, or the rents payable to the Crown by such persons as are licensed to sell wine by retail throughout England, except in a few privileged places. These were first settled on the Crown by the statute 12 Car. II. c. 25, and, together with the hereditary excise, made up the equivalent in value for the loss sustained by the prerogative in the abolition of the military tenures, and the right of pre-emption and purveyance; but this revenue was abolished by 30 Geo. II. c. 19, and an annual sum of upwards of 7,000l. per annum, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licences, was settled on the Crown in its stead.[164]
The prices of wines were fixed anew. By 12 Car. II. it was provided that no canary, muskadel, or aligant, or other Spanish or sweet wines, should be sold by retail for over 1s. 6d. the quart; Gascoigne and French wines limited to 8d. the quart, Rhenish wines to 12d.
From the reign of the Norman kings here, to 1660, the wines of Guienne, Poitou, and Gascony came in, subject to moderate dues, until the reign of Charles II. The amount of duties by 12 Charles II. c. 4, was 13l. 10s. per tun in London, and 16l. 10s. in the out-ports. This was at the rate of 13¼d. the gallon. The trade with France after the Revolution seems to have been carried on upon an equitable footing until 1675, when one of those popular alarms that often disgrace this country was raised, that France was ruining us, for there was a balance of trade against us of 965,128l. Land happened at the time to have fallen in price. The landed interest was shipwrecked; all, it was averred, in consequence of the money of England going over to France for the purchase of her productions. Cries were uttered like those when the calendar was rectified, ‘Give us back our ten days,’ or the old ‘No Popery,’ ‘the Church in danger,’ or more recently the cry of ‘French invasion,’ echoed from all sides, amid the shouts of the ignorant or interested. England was on the brink of ruin, if they were to be credited. The treaty of commerce concluded was soon hooted down, and in 1678, Parliament, the wisdom of which used sometimes to be very problematical, came to a vote declaring that the ‘trade with France was detrimental to the kingdom!’ An Act of absolute wisdom in the legislative sense of that time followed, the preamble of which ran, ‘Forasmuch as it hath been by long experience found that the importing French wines, brandy, silks, linen, salts, and paper, and other commodities of the growth, product, or manufactures of the territories and dominions of the French king, hath much exhausted the treasure of this nation, lessened the value of the native commodities and manufactures thereof, and caused great detriment to this kingdom, &c.’
It was also averred that, in consequence, rents fell. French wine was therefore prohibited from 1679 to 1685.[165]
We form an idea of the Ingredients put into wines from the order of 12 Car. II. c. 25:—
That no merchant, vintner, wine-cooper or other person, selling or retailing any wine, shall mingle or utter any Spanish wine mingled with any French wine, or Rhenish wine, cyder, perry, stummed wine, honey, sugar, syrups of sugar, molasses, or any other syrups whatsoever: nor put in any isinglass, brimstone, lime, raisins, juice of raisins, water, nor any other liquor nor ingredients, nor any clary or other herbs, nor any sort of flesh whatsoever.
The excise duties on superior beer was 1s. 3d.; on inferior, 3d.; on a hogshead of cider or perry, 1s. 3d.; on a gallon of mead, ½d.; on a gallon of aqua-vitæ, 1d.; on a gallon of coffee, 4d.; on a gallon of chocolate or tea, 8d. In 1670, brandy had a duty imposed on it of 8d. a gallon when imported.
Upon the accession of