"The general court has accordingly given secret orders to Master Malachi Huscott, of the brig Porpoise, to waylay the said Welcome, slyly, as near the Cape of Cod as may be, and make captive the said Penn and his ungodly crew, so that the Lord may be glorified, and not mocked on the soil of this new country with the heathen worship of these people. Much spoil can be made by selling the whole lot to Barbadoes, where slaves fetch good prices in rum and sugar, and we shall not only do the Lord great service by punishing the wicked, but we shall make great good for his minister and people. "Master Huscott feels hopeful, and I will set down the news when the ship comes back. "Yours in ye bowels of Christ, "COTTON MATHER." CHAPTER VI _Relation of George Washington to the Liquor Traffic_ In approaching the study of the character of Washington a writer should always remember the veneration in which his memory is justly held among Americans. The reader should remember that public sentiment was then at a very low ebb with regard to the liquor traffic and neither the drinker nor seller was discredited by his neighbors as he is today. The use of liquor played an important part in the life of a Virginia planter a century and a half ago. At all the cross-roads and court-houses there sprang up taverns or ordinaries, and in these the men of a neighborhood would gather and over a bowl of punch or a bottle of wine, the expense of which they clubbed to share, would spend their evenings. Into this life Washington eagerly entered. As a mere lad his ledger records expenditures: "By a club in Arrack at Mr. Gordon's 2/6; Club of a bottle of Rhenish at Mitchel's 1/3; To part of the club at Port Royal 1/; To cash in part for a bowl of fruit punch 1/7-1/2." When Governor Dinwiddie sent Washington in 1753 with a letter to M. de St. Pierre, the French commander, to remonstrate against the erection of French forts, one of the incidents of his journey was a complimentary visit to the Indian queen, Aliquippa, who resided at the confluence of the Monongahela and Youghiogany rivers, in the southeastern part of Alleghany county, Pennsylvania. She had complained of his neglect in not calling upon her when on his outward journey. Young Washington explained the circumstances that prevented him, and with an apology he gave her a coat and a bottle of rum. The latter, Washington wrote, "was thought the much better present of the two," and harmony of feeling was restored. Aliquippa, who was a woman of great energy and had performed some brave deeds, was held in deep respect, amounting almost to reverence, by the Indians in western Pennsylvania. In 1766 Washington shipped an unruly negro to the West Indies and wrote the captain of the vessel as follows: