SCOM^ND IN mt EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 23 



surprising when we learn how it was not only 

 winl ed at, but even encouraged, by the political au- 

 thorities. Among the "Culloden Papers," published 

 in 181 5, there is a most remarkable letter written 

 by Duncan Forbes, Lord President of the Court of 

 Sessions of Scotland, on the state of the revenue of 

 the country. Its date is perhaps about 1742 and 

 was addressed to the Marquis of Tweeddale. 

 Forbes bewails the fact that the excise on beer, ale, 

 and spirits has fallen since 1733 from £40,000 to 

 about one-half of this amount. He gives as the 

 reason the increased consumption of tea and de- 

 clares that the promiscuous custom of drinking it 

 must be stopped. He recounts how the habit began 

 with more prominent households, gradually spread- 

 ing until "the use of ale and beer for mornings and 

 afternoons was almost wholly laid aside; and the 

 Revenue of Excise has sunk in proportion as this 

 villainous practice has grown."* As a means of 

 compelling people to return to stronger drink he ad- 

 vises one of two methods: either the forbidding 

 of tea-drinking by law or else that the tax on it be 

 increased to prohibitive figures. 



In 1708 there were known to have been 50,800 

 gallons of whiskey produced in Scotland, but fifty 

 years later the number had increased to 433,800 on 

 which duty was paid.f When it is remembered that 

 Lord Forbes, the writer of the above quoted letter, 

 was the owner of the Ferintosh stills, the largest in 

 Scotland, and as these stills paid no excise, we can 

 form some idea of how much the real production ex- 



* Culloden Papers, 1815, p. 191 et seq. 



t Graham's "Social I^ife in Scotland in the Eighteenth Century," II, 

 p. 263. 



