i o " Coffee Planting. 



violent opposition, as has indeed been the case 

 with almost every new article introduced among 

 our truly conservative countrymen. It was de- 

 nounced as a "hell-drink/' " hell-poison," and in 

 other equally uncompromising- terms, and a heavy 

 tax was imposed on it by the Legislature. This tax 

 seems to have been levied by the gallon, and it is 

 thus not quite easy to see its exact incidence 

 on the berry, as this would of course depend 

 on the strength of the infusion. 



The English owe to Mr. Edwards, a Turkey 

 merchant, their knowledge of the art of preparing 

 coffee as a beverage. This gentleman, about the 

 year 1650, brought to England a Greek youth 

 named Pasqua Rosee, who used to prepare the 

 drink for his master. The latter, however, as the 

 story goes, finding the novelty begin to attract too 

 many visitors to his house, gave Pasqua his liberty, 

 and enabled him to open a coffee-house on his 

 own account in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill, in 

 partnership with an Englishman (a servant of Mr. 

 Edwards' son-in-law). According to some ac- 

 counts, this would seem to be the first coffee-house 

 opened in this country, but other chroniclers relate 

 that one had been established in Oxford some two 

 years previously. These institutions flourished so 

 exceedingly that it is said, in twelve months there 

 were in London as many coffee-houses as in Con- 



