re
the tropical tobacco and rice fields needed negro labor. But New
England's share in promoting negro slavery in America was just as great
as was Virginia's.

Besides all the rum that was sent to Africa, much was drunk by Americans
at home. At weddings, funerals, christenings, at all public meetings and
private feasts, New England rum was ever present. In nothing is more
contrast shown between our present day and colonial times than in the
habits of liquor-drinking. We cannot be grateful enough for the
temperance reform, which began at the early part of this century, and
was so sadly needed.

For many years the colonists had no tea, chocolate, or coffee to drink;
for those were not in use in England when America was settled. In 1690
two dealers were licensed to sell tea "in publique" in Boston. Green and
bohea teas were sold at the Boston apothecaries' in 1712. For many years
tea was also sold like medicine in England at the apothecaries' and not
at the grocers'.

Many queer mistakes were made through ignorance of its proper use. Many
colonists put the tea into water, boiled it for a time, threw the
liquid away, and ate the tea-leaves. In Salem they did not find the
leaves very attractive, so they put butter and salt on them.

In 1670 a Boston woman was licensed to sell coffee and chocolate, and
soon coffee-houses were established there. Some did not know how to cook
coffee any more than tea, but boiled the whole coffee-beans in water,
ate them, and drank the liquid; and naturally this was not very good
either to eat or drink.

At the time of the Stamp Act, when patriotic Americans threw the tea
into Boston harbor, Americans were just as great tea-drinkers as the
English. Now it is not so. The English drink much more tea than we do;
and the habit of coffee-drinking, first acquired in the Revolution, has
descended from generation to generation, and we now drink more coffee
than tea. This is one of the differences in our daily life caused by the
Revolution.

Many home-grown substitutes were used in Revolutionary times for tea:
ribwort was a favorite one; strawberry and currant leaves, sage,
thorough-wort, and "Liberty Tea," made from the four-leaved loosestrife.
"Hyperion tea" was raspberry leaves, and was said by good patriots to be
"very delicate and most excellent."

CHAPTER VIII

FLAX CULTURE AND SPINNING

In recounting the various influences which assisted the Americans to
success in the War for