1209.] 
houses should be licenced at the general 
quarter-sessions of the peace for the 
county withm which they are to be kept. 
In 1675, King Charles issued a procla- 
mation to shut up the coffee-houses, but 
in a few days suspended that proclama- 
tion by asecond, ‘They were charged 
with being seminaries of sedition, 
The first European author who has 
made any mention of coffee, is Rauwol- 
fus, who was in the Levant in 1573 ;_ but 
the first who has particularly described 
it, is Prosper Alpinus, in his History of 
_ the Egyptian Plants, published at Venice 
in 1591, whose description we have in 
Parkinson’s History of -Plants, p. 1622, 
chap. 79, as follows: Arbor Bon cum 
Jructu suo buna, the Tarks berry drink. 
Alpinus in his first book of Egyptian 
Plants, gives us the description of this 
tree, which he says he saw in the garden 
of a captain of the Janissaries, which 
was brought out of Arabia-Felix, and 
there planted asa rarity never seen crow- 
ing in those places before. The tree, saith 
Alpinus is somewhat like Euonymus, or 
Spindle-tree, but the leaves of it were 
thicker, harder, and greener, and always 
abiding on the tree. The fruit is called 
Buna, and is somewhat bigger than an 
hazel nut, and longer, round also and 
pointed at one end; furrowed like- 
wise, on both sides, vet, on one side, 
more conspicuous than the other, that 
it might be parted into two: ineach side 
whereof lieth asmall oblong white kernel, 
flat on the side they join together, cover- 
éd with a yellowish skin of an acid taste 
and somewhat bitter, and contained in a 
thin shell,* of adarkish ash colour. With 
these berries in Arabia and Egypt, and 
other parts of the Turkish dominions, 
they generally make a decoction or 
drink, which is in the stead of wine to 
them, and commonly sold in their tap- 
houses or taverns, called by the name of 
caova ; Paludamus says chouva, and Rau- 
wolfus chawke. This drink has many 
good physical properties; it strengthens 
a weak stomach, helping digestion, and 
the tumours and obstructions of the liver 
and spleen, being drank fasting for some 
time together. It is held in great esti- 
mation among the Egyptian and Arabian 
women in common feminine cases, in 
which they find it does them eminent 
service. 
Lord Chancellor Bacon likewise makes 
mention of it in 1624: he says, that the 
* This description is evidently taken from 
a dried berry, and not from the ripe fruit’ 
4 
A History of Coffee; by the late Dr. Fothergill. 94 
Turks have a drink called coffee, made 
with boilitg water, of a berry reduced 
into powder, which makes the water as 
black as soot, atid is of a pungent and 
aromatic smell, and is drank warm. 
The celebrated John Ray, in his Histo- 
ry of Plants, published in 1690, speaking 
of it as a drink very much in use, says, 
that this tree grows only within the 
tropics, and supposes that the Arabs de- 
stroy the vegetable quality of the seeds, 
in order to confine among themselves 
the great share of wealth, which is 
brought thither from the whole world for 
this commodity; fiiom whence he ob- 
serves, that this part of Arabia might be 
truly styled the most happy, and that it 
was almost incredible how many willions 
of bushels were exported from thence 
into ‘Turkey, Barbary, and Europe. He 
says, he was astonished that one particular 
nation should possess so great a treasure, 
and that within the narrow limits ef one 
province; and that he wondered the 
neighbouring nations did not contrive to 
bring away some of the sound seeds or 
living plants, in order: to share in the 
advantages of so lucrative a trade, 
We now come to shew by what means 
this valuable tree was first introduced 
into Europe, and thence into Ame- 
rica. 
The first account of this tree being 
brought into Europe, we have from Boer- 
haave, i his Index to the Leyden Gar- 
den, /part2, p. 217, which is as follows: 
“‘ Nicholas Witsen, Burgomaster of Am- 
sterdam, and governor of the East India 
Company, by his letters often advised 
and desired Van Hoorn, governor of 
Batavia, to procure from Mocha in Aras 
bia-Felix some berries of.the coffee-tree 
to be sown at Batavia, which he haying , 
accordingly done, and by that means 
about the year 1690, raised many plants 
from seeds, he sent one over to Governor 
Witsen, who immediately presented it to 
the garden at Amsterdam, of which he 
was the founder and supporter ; it there 
bore fruit, which ina short time produ- 
ced many young plants from the seeds, 
Boerhaaye then concludes that the merit 
of introducing this rare tree into Europe, 
is due to the care and liberality of Wit- 
sen alone. 
In the year 1714, the magistrates of 
Amsterdam in order to pay a particular 
comphmentto Louis XIV. King of France 
presented to him an e:egant plagt of this 
rare tree, carefully packed up to go by 
water, and defended from the weather by 
a curious machine, covered with glass. 
The 
