Voorst mansion, set fire to the roof. It was impossible to check the flames and the house was burned to the ground, presumably destroying the hogshead of wine. The business of the tapster necessarily preceded that of the brewer; for before the colonists could raise a crop of the cereals necessary for brewing—which they did, by the way, according to Isaac Jogues’ description of Novum Belgium, in the very first year after their settlement—they had to depend upon the supply of liquors shipped to them from the mother country; and, from all accounts, we learn that the quantities thus imported were very large and, to modern minds, entirely out of proportion to the very scant population of the colony. In the earliest times, the condition and surroundings of the colonists were such that all available means of subsistence had to be treated very much like common property. Thus the West India Company undertook, at first, to furnish the settlers with what they absolutely needed for their sustenance,—the understanding being that the value of goods so furnished must be returned by the borrower as soon as the product of his labor enabled him to do so. This accounts for the fact that the first taproom on Manhattan Island was located in the first warehouse erected by Minuet, then Governor of New Netherland (1626-1633). [Sidenote: GOVERNOR KIEFT’S CURFEW] The number of tapsters, under Van Twiller’s administration, increased rapidly; but there is no evidence that brewing kept pace with this growth—probably because the importation of wines and liquors from the mother country still sufficed to satisfy the demand. When, however, in the first year of his administration (1638), Governor Kieft forbade the retailing of wines and spirits by the tapsters (virtually restricting the liquor traffic to the selling of beer) the brewing trade expanded to such an extent that a few years later an excise upon its product yielded a considerable revenue. From this time onward, brewing and retailing formed the subjects of frequent legislation both in New Netherland and in the New England colonies. The lawmakers not only regulated and taxed the manufacture and sale, but they also prescribed minutely the quality and price of beer, the time when, and circumstances under which, it could be sold; the duties of the tapster and the obligations of the drinker. Kieft forbade the tapping of beer during divine service and after a certain hour at night; and, in order to remind the burghers and tapsters of the latter inhibition, he caused the town bell to be rung—an imitation of the old European custom of announcing the hour for retiring. His object in introducing the curfew (the Norman _couvre feu_)[2] was probably not confined to these things; it is quite likely that he intended thus to force upon the honest Dutch burghers the conviction that a man of strong will had come to assume the powers and functions which the licentious Van Twiller had permitted to be disregarded.