sticirri i.r I' \ V a '.n r 



Figure 3. — A Society of Patriotic Ladies at Edenton in Nortli Cirolina pledging to drink n:> more 

 tea, 1775, an engraving publislied by R. Saver and J. Bennet, London. In Print and Photo- 

 graph Division, Library- of Congress, {P/ioto courtesy of Library of Congress.) 



In the daily routine of activities when the hour for 

 tea arrived, Moreau de St. Mery remarked that "the 

 mistress of the house serves it and passes it around." '^ 

 In the words of another late-18th-century diarist, 

 the Marquis de Barbe-Marbois, those present might 



" Moreau de Saint-Mery, op. cil. (footnote 17), p. 266. 



PAPER 14: TE.A DRINKING IN 18TH-CENTURV .AMERK:.\ 

 544609—60 2 



"seat themselves at a spotless mahogany table, and 

 the eldest daughter of the household or one of the 

 youngest married women makes the tea and gives a 

 cup to each person in the company."' Family Group 

 (fig. 1 I provides an illustration of this practice 

 in the early part of the century. During the tea hour 

 social and economic affairs were discussed, gossip 

 exchanged, and, according to Barbe-Marbois, "when 



69 



