The taste of the day was evidently for a full-bodied non-sparkling wine; and this is confirmed by Jeanson, Messrs. Moët's traveller in England, who writes from London in May 1790: 'How the taste of this country has altered within the last ten years! Almost everywhere they ask for a dry wine; but they want a wine so vinous and so strong, that there is hardly anything but Sillery that will satisfy them.' Additional confirmation is found in a letter, written from London in May 1799 to Messrs. Moët, by a Mr. John Motteux, complaining of delay in the delivery of a parcel of wine said to have been sent off by way of Havre, and very likely destined to be surreptitiously introduced into England _viâ_ Guernsey. He asks for a further supply of Sillery, if its safe arrival can be guaranteed, and remarks, 'There is nothing to be compared to Sillery when it is genuine; it must not have the least sweetness nor _mousse_.'[353] During the great French war, patriotism and increased duties might have been expected to check the import of French wines; yet, if statistics are worth anything, the reverse would appear to have been the case. The registered imports, which from 1770 to 1786 had fluctuated between 80,000 and 125,000 gallons, rose during the last fourteen years of the century to an average of 550,000 gallons per annum. In those fighting, rollicking, hard-drinking times, when it was a sacred social duty to toast 'great George our King' on every possible occasion, Champagne continued to be 'the wine of fashion.' The sparkling variety was terribly costly, no doubt, and was often doled out, as Mr. Walker relates, 'like drops of blood.'[354] But whilst the stanch admirers of Port might profess to despise Champagne as effeminate, and the 'loyal volunteers' condemn it as the produce of a foeman's soil, there were plenty to sing in honour of 'The Fair of Britain's Isle:' 'Fill, fill the glass, to beauty charge, And banish care from every breast; In brisk Champaign we'll quick discharge, A toast shall give the wine a zest.'[355]