Powell's:

"A most sinful feast again: Everything which could delight the eye, or allure the taste, curds, and creams, jellies, sweetmeats of various kinds, twenty sorts of tarts, fools, trifles, floating islands, whipped syllabubs, etc. Parmesan cheese, punch, wine, porter, beer, etc."

The Swedes planted peach and fruit trees of all kinds, had flourishing gardens, and grew rich selling the products when the Quakers arrived. They made wine, beer, or brandy out of sassafras, persimmons, corn, and apparently anything that could be made to ferment and they imported Madeira. Acrelius, their historian, gives a long list of their drinks, and tells us that they always indulged in four meals a day.

In the True and Sincere Declaration, issued in December, 1609, by the Governor and Council for Virginia, there was an advertisement for two brewers, who, as soon as they were secured, were to be dispatched to the Colony. Brewers were also included among the tradesmen who were designed by the Company to go over with Sir Thomas Gates. This indicated the importance in the eyes of that corporation of establishing the means in Virginia of manufacturing malt liquors on the spot instead of relying on the importation from England. The notion arose that one of the principal causes of mortality so prevalent among those arriving in the Colony, in the period following the first settlement of the country, was the substitution of water for beer to which the immigrants had been accustomed in England. The Assembly, in the session of 1623, went so far as to recommend that all new comers should bring in a supply of malt to be used in brewing liquor, thus making it unnecessary to drink the water of Virginia until the body had become hardened to the climate. Previous to 1625, two brew-houses were in operation in the Colony, and the patronage they received was evidently very liberal.

Cider was in as common use as beer; in season it was found in the house of every planter in the Colony. It was the form of consideration in which rent was occasionally settled; the instance of Alexander Moore, of New York, shows the quantity often bequeathed: he left at his decease twenty gallons of raw cider and one hundred and thirty of boiled. Richard Moore of the same county kept on hand as many as fourteen cider casks. Richard Bennett made about twenty butts of cider annually, while Richard Kinsman compressed from the pears growing in his orchard forty or fifty of perry. A supply of spirits was provided for the members of public bodies when they convened. The character of the liquors used depended on the nature of the assemblage. When Charles Hansford and David Condon, as executors of the widow of the unfortunate Thomas Hansford, leased her residence in York to the justice of the peace of that county to serve as a court house, they bound themselves to furnish not only accommodations for horses, but also a gallon of brandy during each session of the bench. It is not stated whether this brandy was consumed by the honorable justices in the form of the drink which had become so famous in later times in Virginia, the mint julep, but if mint was cultivated in the colony at that age, it is quite probable that a large part of this gallon was converted into that mixture. In 1666 the justices of Lower Norfolk county rented the tract of land on which the court house was situated, on condition that the lessee, in part consideration for the use of the houses and orchards each year, would pay ten gallons brewed from English grain. The members of the Council appear to have been fastidious in their tastes. It was one of the duties of the auditor-general to have a large quantity of wine always ready at hand for this body. Thus on one occasion William Byrd, who filled the office in the latter part of the century, ordered for their use twenty dozen of claret, and six dozen of canary, sherry, and Rhenish, respectively. A quarter of a cask of brandy was also to be added.

CHAPTER II
Early Attempts at Regulation by Legislation

This unrestrained indulgence in liquor, which previous to 1624 had excited the criticism of the company, called down on the Colony on several occasions the animadversion of the Royal Governor after he had taken charge of affairs in Virginia. In 1625 Governor Yeardley was instructed to suppress drunkenness by severe punishments, and to dispose of the spirits brought into the Colony in such manner that it would go to the relief and comfort of the whole plantation instead of falling into the hands of those who would abuse it. He received additional orders to return to the importers all liquors shown to be decayed or unwholesome. The injunction to withhold all liquors imported into the Colony from persons who were guilty of excess in the use of them was repeated.

The attempts to prevent drunkenness were not confined to instructions to the Governors, given by the authorities in England. From the first session of the first assembly, no legislative means were left unemployed to accomplish the same object. In 1619 it was provided that the person guilty in this respect should for the first offense be privately reproved by his minister; for the second, publicly; for the third be imprisoned for twelve hours; and if still incorrigible be punished as the Governor directed.

In March, 1623-4, the church-wardens in every parish were ordered to present all persons guilty of drunkenness to the commander of the plantation. In 1631-2 the offender was required to pay five shillings into the hands of the nearest vestry, and this fine could be made good by levy on his property. In 1657-8 the person guilty of inebriety was punished by a very heavy fine, and also rendered incapable of being a witness in court, or bearing office under the government of the Colony. In 1691 the penalty for drunkenness was ten shillings, and if unable to pay the sum, the offender was to be exposed in the stocks for the space of two hours.

In 1668 there were so many taverns and tippling houses in the Colony that it was found necessary to reduce the number in each county to one or two, unless, for the accommodation of travelers, more should be needed at ports, ferries, and the crossings of great roads, in addition to that which was erected at the court house.

Drunkards were severely punished and were set in the stocks and whipped. On September 3, 1633, in Boston one Robert Coles was "fined ten shillings and enjoined to stand with a white sheet of paper on his back, whereon Drunkard shall be written in great lynes, and to stand therewith soe long as the court find meet, for abusing himself shamefully with drinke." Robert Coles for "drunkenness by him committed at Rocksbury shall be disfranchised, weare about his neck, and so to hang upon his outward garment a D made of redd cloth & sett upon white; to continue this for a yeare, & not to have it off any time hee comes among company, under the penalty of one shilling for the first offense, and five pounds for the second, and afterwards to be punished by the Court as they think meet: also he is to weare the D outwards."

Lists of names of common drunkards were given to landlords in some towns, and landlords were warned not to sell liquor to them. Licenses were removed and fines imposed on those who did not heed the warning. The tithing man, that most bumptious public functionary of colonial times, was at first the official appointed to spy specially on the ordinaries. He inspected these houses, made complaints of any disorders he