It is an historical fact that Robinson’s stout-hearted flock of “Separatists,” while yet at their first place of refuge in Holland, and considering, with all the seriousness of their character, the advisability of migrating to the Western World, were long undecided as to the course they should take; whether to accept the invitation of the Dutch to settle in New Amsterdam, or to avail themselves of the inducements held out by the Virginia Company, or finally, to create an independent community in New England. Even after their embarkation, it was not positively determined whether Virginia or New England should be their destination. Now it may easily be conceived that, in conjunction with the historically demonstrable causes of the landing at Plymouth, the lack of beer helped to accelerate a final resolution, and thus prevented a settlement in Virginia—a course which might have turned the subsequent current of our national development into a direction totally different from that which led us on to political, moral and physical greatness. If we duly consider what all historians are agreed upon, namely, that the people of that part of the mother-country whence the New England colonists originally emigrated, still represented, in a remarkable degree of purity, the old Teutonic stock—German tinged with Northman’s blood—we may be all the more inclined to accept this beer story seriously; at all events, we shall understand perfectly what history tells us of the colonial brewer and his place in the infant society. [Sidenote: THE FIRST BREWERY] The first authentic record of the existence of a public brewery dates back to 1637, so far as Massachusetts Bay, and to 1638, so far as Rhode Island is concerned; the former brewery was the result of the personal enterprise of Captain Sedgwick, the latter a communal creation of Roger Williams’ nascent colony, a combined brew-house and tavern, placed under the supervision of Sergeant Baulston. These were not the first brewers, however, for, some time before either of them was mentioned, the licensed tavern-keepers had obtained permission to brew, or rather, to speak more correctly, were _directed_ by the governing authorities to brew beer, of which both the quality and the price formed the subjects of early legislation and regulation. In addition to these brewing tapsters, as we might style them, nearly every well-to-do housewife brewed beer for her own household consumption. While the domestic manufacture of distilled liquors, carried on in a most primitive way, was not likely to be neglected by a people whose drinking habits were quite as conspicuous as their piety, valor, endurance, prowess and moral rectitude, the early local histories and laws afford abundant proof that the best minds earnestly endeavored to stem the growing predilection for ardent spirits by bestowing fostering care upon brewing and malting.