Drink (30 page)

Hell-bent, so it seemed, on alienating its American subjects, the British government followed up the Stamp Act with the Quartering Act of 1765. Under its provisions, British troops stationed in America were to be accommodated in barns, inns, stables, and the houses of dealers in wine and spirits, and provided with rations, including five pints of beer each every day. The cost was to be borne by the colonists. The New York Assembly refused to comply, and its defiance was celebrated with a street party with “a roasted ox, a hogshead of rum, and twenty-five barrels of ale, which were dispensed freely as long as they lasted.”

News of disorder in America, and the clear failure of the Sugar and Stamp acts to raise anything like the projected revenues (the Sugar Act cost eight thousand pounds to administer for every two thousand it raised), persuaded the British government to step back from the brink and repeal the latter act in 1766. It was replaced with the Townshend Acts, which imposed duties on a variety of common products imported into America, and which once again left enforcement to the Royal Navy and the Admiralty courts, effectively removing the right to trial by jury for suspected transgressors. The new acts offered little in the way of concessions for the aggrieved colonists. Their author, Charles Townshend, chancellor of the Exchequer in 1767, was “admired for his ability to make a brilliant speech in the Commons when drunk”; and the legislation that carried his name had a certain inebriated optimism, combinedwith a
muddled
belligerence, which inspired resistance on the far shore of the Atlantic rather than dutiful acquiescence.

Thus far, alcohol had made a significant contribution to the dispute between Britain and its colonies. The destruction of the rum trade, the closure of markets in Madeira, Portugal, and elsewhere to American produce, and the price inflation of alcoholic beverages had affected the lives and incomes of a majority of Americans. However, tame submission to a parliament in which they had no representation, which had no ear for their grievances, and which, whether by design or accident, threatened to ruin their livelihoods held no appeal to them, and they responded by strengthening the ties among themselves via circular letters and by forming associations dedicated to opposing British injustices, such as the
Sons of Liberty,
which had factions in New York, Boston, and, latterly, Georgia.

The Boston chapter of the Sons of Liberty was founded by Samuel Adams, who ran a malting business in Purchase Street. It met either at the Green Dragon Tavern or the Bunch of Grapes in King Street. The Green Dragon, named after a copper dragon over its door that had oxidized in the rain, was a nursery for revolutionaries. The Sons of Liberty who gathered within its rooms refreshed themselves and inspired their defiance with a specially commissioned punch bowl, made by the silversmith and engraver Paul Revere. Known as the Liberty Bowl, it was in itself an act of political subversion. Engraved on one side was the following:

“TO the Memory of the glorious NINETY-TWO: Members of the Hon. House of Representatives of the Massachusetts-Bay, who, undaunted by the insolent Menaces of Villains in Power, from a Strict Regard to Conscience, and the LIBERTIES of their Constituents, on the 30th of June 1768 Voted NOT TO RESCIND.”
²⁶
The back of the bowl bore the legend
No. 45 Wilkes & Liberty
and flags displaying the phrases
Magna Charta
and
Bill of Rights
. The bowl had a capacity of forty-five gills of punch and weighed forty-five ounces. The names of various Sons of Liberty were also engraved around its rim.

John Hancock was one of the names inscribed on the Liberty Bowl. Born in Braintree, Massachusetts, Hancock was the wealthiest man in New England, and his wealth had come from trade, principally in various alcoholic beverages. In 1768, one of his ships, the aptly named
Liberty,
was impounded in Boston by British officials for smuggling Madeira wines. Under the cover of a riot, her cargo was liberated by thirsty Bostonians, and the officials were forced to flee the town. Such impertinent disregard for His Majesty’s laws and representatives provoked the British to send a man-of-war to Boston to ensure that it was not repeated.

News of this exploit and its consequences spread, and in colony after colony associations were formed, protests staged, and direct action was taken, in the form of a boycott on British goods. This was a powerful weapon. There were by now more than two million people in British America, and while they produced a surplus of commodities, they relied on the metropolitan power for their manufactured goods, which likewise relied on their market for its exports. In 1769, the resolve of the colonists to support nonimportation was tested by the arrival in Philadelphia of the
Charming Polly,
a merchant vessel from Yarmouth with a cargo of best British malt. The city’s brewers responded with a written pledge, in which they resolved “that as the load of malt just arrived was contrary to the agreement of the merchants and traders they will not purchase any part of it, nor will they brew the same, or any part thereof, for any person whatsoever.” At about the same time, in imitation of the Bostonians, the people of the town liberated a cargo of impounded Madeira from its customs.

Virginia likewise resolved to boycott British products—at a considerable cost to its inhabitants. The colony was still a monoculture, and its tobacco planters sold most of their crop to London merchants, to whom many were heavily indebted, and such voluntary restraints on trade only worsened their financial position. However, whereas the British administration at the time was characterized by the incompetence of its leaders, Virginia, in contrast, was graced with a collection of exceptional individuals, including George Washington, the hero of the French and Indian War, Thomas Jefferson, scholar and planter, and Patrick Henry, lawyer and orator. Such able men saw the dispute with Britain as not merely financial but also constitutional, and under their leadership and inspiration, the Virginia House of Burgesses resolvedto oppose the metropolitan power. It was dissolved by the royal governor but reconvened (in true colonial style) in Anthony Hay’s tavern, to consider what courses future resistance might take. When the House of Burgesses was permitted to assemble again in 1770, one of its first measures was to execute a nonimportation agreement, which was signed by Washington and Henry and which stated “that we will not hereafter, directly or indirectly, import, or cause to be imported, from Great Britain, any of the goods hereafter enumerated . . . beer, ale, porter, malt.”

The nonimportation campaign was a success: In April 1770, the Townshend Acts were repealed, and all duties were eliminated except for those on tea. This concession, however, did not diminish the rising tension. In March of the same year, a company of redcoats quartered in Boston opened fire on a crowd who were pelting them with snowballs, killing three. While the soldiers and their commander were tried for murder, all were acquitted of the capital charge, and only two were lightly punished, by the standards of the age, by being branded with a red hot iron. Such lenience rankled and became the subject of numerous pamphlets demonstrating the cruelty and disregard for human rights by the British.

Whereas the rum trade had been one of the principal initial matters of contention between Britain and her colonies, now it was the turn of a nonalcoholic beverage to provoke discord. In May 1773, the Tea Act came into effect, which imposed a duty of three pence per pound on all tea imported into America. This tax was intended to help the British East India Company through a flat patch of low prices, demonstrating once again that a London-based commercial organization carried more political clout than several million subjects on the other side of the Atlantic. Before it was singled out for a special duty, tea had been a popular drink in the colonies. While its arrival earlier in the eighteenth century had been greeted with almost comical ignorance—according to the reminiscences of a Long Island settler, “One family boiled it in a pot and ate it like samp-porridge. Another spread tea-leaves on his bread and butter, and bragged of his having ate half a pound at a meal, to his neighbor, who was informing him how long a pound of tea lasted him”—it had long since become established as a popular beverage.

However, as soon as tea was selected to carry duty, it became a symbol of oppression, and when three East India tea clippers arrived in Boston Harbor, the colonists resolved to take action. Notices were posted through the town:

On the night of December 16, 1773, the Green Dragon was packed with colonists dressed up as Indians. “Who knows how tea will mingle with salt water?” they asked, as the Liberty Bowl made its rounds. Late that night, in the words of
The Massachusetts Gazette:

The British countered this outrage with the Coercive Acts of 1774, which closed the port of Boston and filled the town with troops. Various Sons of Liberty, including Paul Revere, were dispatched posthaste to other colonies to inform them of the “rash, impolitic, and vindictive measures of the British Parliament.” A congress with representatives from every colony was convened in Philadelphia, where the delegates surprised themselves with a mutual spirit of cooperation. They discovered they were preparing for war and made appropriate resolutions, including one intended to protect the grain supply in the event of fighting and to keep men sober for the same eventuality: “
Resolved,
that it be recommended to the several legislatures of the United Colonies immediately to pass laws the more effectually to put a stop to the pernicious practice of distilling, by which the most extensive evils are likely to be derived, if not quickly prevented.” In the event, none of the United Colonies implemented laws to limit distillation. Rum went well with belligerence.

Meanwhile, back in Boston the tension was rising. The British had prohibited the importation of gunpowder and shot into the colonies and were about to send reinforcements to Fort William and Mary in Ports-mouth to protect its magazine. Paul Revere made another ride on April 19, 1775, to advise the local Sons of Liberty that the redcoats were on their way. His first stop was with Isaac Hall, captain of the Medford Minute Men, who gave him a quantity of rum that “would have made a rabbit bite a bulldog.” Thus inspired, Revere completed his mission. Patriots raided the fort and emptied its powder store before the reinforcements arrived. It was not long before its contents were being used upon the British. In April 1775 the fighting started. The colonial forces were placed by Congress under the command of George Washington. They surrounded the British troops in Boston, where they dug themselves in and impressed their general with their appetite for alcohol. According to an observer at the siege, “Without New England rum, a New England army could not be kept together.” The same writer estimated average consumption to be a bottle per head per day.

A supply of alcohol was no less important to the blockaded British, and the news that they were running short on beef and beer, and that their morale was suffering accordingly, was reported to John Adams by his wife, Abigail, who had remained in the town after the siege had commenced. Contracts were drawn up in London for five thousand barrels of strong beer to be shipped to relieve the redcoats, but a number of resupply vessels were taken by American privateers, including one carrying beer from Bristol in November 1775, and, in the same month, a sloop from the West Indies with “Rum, Sugar, and Fruit on board.” The capture of the latter was celebrated in a letter from Horatio Gates to Benjamin Franklin; as was the diversion of its cargo to their cause: “So Wine, and Punch will not be wanting to the Sons of Liberty. Let the Sons of Slavery get them how they can.”

In March 1776 the British abandoned Boston. In June of the same year, they landed an army in New York, which was to be their base of operations against their rebellious subjects. The subjects, meanwhile, had resolved to end their association with the mother country. Their
Declaration of Independence
was drafted by Thomas Jefferson in a Philadelphia tavern. The first man to sign it, in a large, clear hand, was the merchant and Madeira smuggler John Hancock. Other signatories included a maltster, a cooper, a distiller, several smugglers, and numerous cider makers.

As the war developed, alcohol continued to play its part. Both sides issued drink rations to their troops, and on occasions the overeager consumption of these influenced the outcome of engagements. Washington’s first great victory, at Trenton in 1776 over Hessian mercenaries, was assisted by the drunken condition of his adversaries. At the skirmish of Eutaw Springs, in contrast, the Americans drove a British force from its camp, then paused to consume the rum rations they had captured. The redcoats counterattacked when the Americans had “eaten a toad and a half ” and carried the field. Despite such evidence that alcohol might impair the efficiency of fighting troops, General Washington was convinced it was essential to them. The “benefits arising from the moderate use of strong Liquor have been experienced in all Armies and are not to be disputed,” he counseled Congress in 1777, and recommended that they ignore their prior resolution against distillation and instead erect “Public Distilleries in different States” to ensure security of supply. Four years later he was still of the same opinion: Soldiers needed spirit rations. In 1781, he advised John Hancock, whose business skills had been applied to sourcing provisions and finance for the Continental army, that “wine cannot be distributed [to] the Soldiers instead of Rum, except the quantity is much increased. I very much doubt whether a Gill of rum would not be preferred to a pint of small wine.”