The history of tea, from its first introduction to England, may be read in the history of taxation. It appears to have escaped the notice of nearly all writers on tea, that the first tax is a curious illustration of the original mode of its sale. By the act of the 22d and 23d Charles II., 1670–1, a duty of eighteenpence was imposed upon ‘every _gallon_ of chocolate, sherbet, and tea, made and sold, to be paid by the makers thereof.’ It is manifest that such a tax was impossible to be collected without constant evasion; and so, after having remained on the Statute Book for seventeen years, it was discovered, in 1688, that ‘the collecting of the duty by way of Excise upon the liquors of coffee, chocolate, and tea, is not only very troublesome and unequal upon the retailers of these liquors, but requireth such attendance of officers as makes the neat receipt very inconsiderable.’ The excise upon the liquor was therefore repealed, and heavy Customs’ duties imposed on the imported tea. The annals of tea may be divided into epochs. The first is that in which the liquid only was taxed, which tax commenced about ten years after we have any distinct record of the public or private use of tea. In 1660, dear old Pepys writes, ‘I did send for a cup of tea (a China drink) of which I never had drank before.’ In 1667, the herb had found its way into his own house: ‘Home, and there find my wife making of tea; a drink which Mr. Pelling, the Potticary, tells her is good for her cold and defluxions.’