Of the drink itself he writes:—
But Thalaba took not the draught,
For right he knew the Prophet had forbidden
That beverage, the mother of sins;
Nor did the urgent guests
Proffer the second time the liquid fire,
For in the youth’s strong eye they saw
No movable resolve.
William Playfair, the famous political economist, wrote in 1805 his Enquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. He has some striking remarks upon the bearing of revenue upon the drink traffic:—
When a nation becomes the slave of its revenue, and sacrifices everything to that object, abuses that favour revenue are difficult to reform; but surely it would be well to take some mode to prevent the facility with which people get drunk, and the temptation that is laid to do so. The immense number of public-houses, and the way in which they give credit, are undoubtedly, in part, causes of this evil. It would be easy to lessen the number, without hurting liberty, and it would be no injustice if publicans were prevented from legal recovery for beer or spirits consumed in their houses, in the same manner that payment cannot be enforced of any person under twenty-one years of age, unless for necessaries. There could be no hardship in this, and it would produce a great reform in the manners of the lower orders. There are only three modes of teaching youth the way to well-doing—by precept, by example, and by habit at an early age. Precept, without example and habit, has but little weight, yet how can a child have either of these, if the parents are encouraged and assisted in living a vicious life? Nations and individuals should guard against those vices to which they find they have a natural disposition; and drinking and gluttony are the vices to which the common people in this country are the most addicted.
We now pass to some of the political action of the reign. In 1768, Sir Francis Dashwood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a new tax on cider and perry, amounting to ten shillings on the hogshead. Earl Stanhope states that the outcry was so vehement that a modification of the scheme was all that was granted, and four shillings were to be paid by the grower. In the Upper House the Bill was also strongly opposed, but the Ministry carried the point. Bute incurred much odium. People compared the rash disregard of popular opinion with which this measure was pushed through with the conduct of Sir Robert Walpole, who had bowed to the public demonstrations against his system of excise; and when Bute’s resignation was announced many ascribed his retreat to the alarm raised by the popular indignation. A caricature entitled, The Roasted Exciseman; or, the Jack Boot’s exit, represents the enraged mob burning the effigy of a Scotchman suspended on a gallows; a great worn boot lies on the bonfire, into which a man is throwing an excised cider barrel as fuel.
The City of London presented a petition against the tax at the bar of the House of Commons, but to no effect; and in the cider counties it was found hard indeed to enforce the duties imposed.
One of many lachrymations was Benjamin Heath’s The Case of the County of Devon, 1763. An address to honest English hearts, being an honest countryman’s reflections on the cider tax, 1763. Some plain reasons for the repeal of the cider tax, dedicated to every man who pays taxes, and particularly to the Honourable G—— J——, M.P. for Norfolk, &c., 1763. An address to the electors, such as are not makers of cider and perry, 1787.
The tax on beer, too, early in the reign, had greatly exasperated the mob. The Royal Magazine tells that while their Majesties were at Drury Lane Theatre, to see the Winter’s Tale, as Garrick was repeating the lines:—
‘For you, my hearts of oak, for your regale,
Here’s good old English stingo, mild and stale,’
a fellow cried out of the gallery: ‘At threepence a pot, Master Garrick, or confusion to the brewers!’