290 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



Tea appears to have been first used hi 

 England during the Commonwealth; for on 

 the restoration of Charles the Second, in 

 1660, the Parliament in that year laid a duty 

 of eight-pence on every gallon of the infusion 

 of tea that was sold at the coffee-houses. This 

 duty could not have been very productive to 

 the government, as the price of common 

 tea was then sixty shillings per pound in 

 London ; although it did not cost more than 

 two and sixpence or three shillings atBatavia. 

 A duty of four-pence per gallon was laid on 

 all the coffee sold at the coffee-houses at the 

 same time. It therefore seems to have been 

 the wish of the ministers to suppress coffee- 

 houses, which were then more the rendezvous 

 of politicians than at the present day ; for 

 we find in 1675, that the above-mentioned 

 monarch was so ill advised, as to issue a pro- 

 clamation for shutting up coffee-houses as 

 seminaries of sedition. This ill-judged act 

 w r as, however, suspended in a few days ; but it 

 had the effect of making them to be more 

 frequented. 



In 1666, tea appears to have been first 

 used by families of distinction ; as we are told, 

 that in that year it was imported from Hol- 

 land by the Lords Arlington and Ossory, 



