ion. As the war came on, however, dealers began to force up
prices on a dwindling market. The situation became so serious that in
January, 1776, the Philadelphia Commission of Inspection issued a
fair-price list, setting an arbitrary price of eleven pence per pound on
coffee in bag lots. Persons found violating this price were to be
"exposed to public view as sordid vultures preying on the vitals of the
country."

Despite this threat, J. Peters in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, wrote to a
Philadelphia friend, "I cannot purchase any coffee without taking, too,
one bill a tierce of Claret & Sour, and at L6.8 per gall.... I have been
trying day for day, & never could get a grain of Coffee so as to sell it
at the limited price these six weeks. It may be bought, but at 25/ per
lb."

The important part played by the coffee houses of colonial America,
beginning with the establishment of the London coffee house in Boston,
in 1689, the King's Arms in New York in 1696, and Ye coffee house in
Philadelphia in 1700, has been related.

"Females" of ye olde Boston, staging in 1777 a "coffee party" which
rivaled in a small way the famous Tea Party in 1773, personally
chastised a profiteer hoarder of foodstuffs, and confiscated some of his
stock, according to a letter from Abigail Adams to her distinguished
husband, later second president of the United States.

Writing at Boston, under date of July 31, 1777, Abigail wrote to John,
then attending the Continental Congress at Philadelphia:

There is a great scarcity of sugar and coffee, articles which the
female part of the state is very loath to give up, especially
whilst they consider the great scarcity occasioned by the merchants
having secreted a large quantity. It is rumored that an eminent
stingy merchant, who is a bachelor, had a hogshead of coffee in his
store, which he refused to sell under 6 shillings per pound.

A number of females--some say a hundred, some say more--assembled
with a cart and trunk, marched down to the warehouse, and demanded
the keys.

Upon his finding no quarter, he delivered the keys, and they then
opened the warehouse, hoisted out the coffee themselves, put it
into a trunk, and drove off. A large concourse of men stood amazed,
silent spectators of the whole transaction.

In 1783-84 the Congress of the United States considered the imposition
of a duty on "seven classes of goods consumed by th