170 TRAVELSIN 
wholefome bfead might be generally purchafed for twopencei 
Even in the midft of a fcarcity, which threatened a famine,, 
bread rofe no higher than twopence the pound j and all kiftda 
of fruit and vegetables are fo abundant, and fo cheap, as to be 
within the reach of the poorefl perfon. A pint of good found 
wine may be procured for threepence ; and, were it not for 
the circumftance of the licence for felling wine by retail being 
fi^rmed out as one fource of the colonial revenue, a pint of the 
fame wine would coft little more than three-halfpence. 
*rhis farming out the wine licence was a fubjedl of grievance 
to the foldier, as it compelled him to buy his wine in fmall 
quantities at the licenfed houfes, when the civilians and houfe- 
keepers were allowed to purchafe it in cafks of twenty gallons^ 
at the rate of five or fix rix-dollars the cafk, which is juft about 
half the retail price he was obliged to pay for it. Yet, vexatious 
as fuch a regulation appeared to be, it was ftill fufficiently cheap 
to enable the foldier to purchafe fully as much as was ufeful to 
him. Numbers of the foldiers, indeed, contrived to fave money 
out of their pay. The 91 ft regiment of Highlanders, in parti-, 
cular, were known to have remitted a good deal of money to- 
their families in Scotland ; and many of the ferjeants of the dif- 
ferent regiments, at the evacuation of the colony, had faved from, 
one to two hundred pounds in hard money. 
In the year 1800 the government, in order to bring a little: 
more money into the treafury from the wine licence, direded, 
by proclamation, that the retail fellers fhould demand from the 
foldier the increafed price of eightpence the bottle, inftead of 
fix- 
