A sort of men of whom we are sufficiently ashamed, who spend their time in taverns, tippling-houses, and debauches, giving no other evidence of their affection to us but in drinking our health, and inveighing against all others who are not of their own dissolute temper; and who in truth have more discredited our cause by the license of their manners and lives, than they could ever advance it by their affection or courage. We hope all persons of honour, or in place and authority, will so far assist us in discountenancing such men, that their discretion and shame will persuade them to reform what their conscience would not; and that the displeasure of good men towards them may supply what the laws have not, and, it may be, cannot well provide against; there being by the license and corruption of the times, and the depraved nature of man, many enormities, scandals, and impieties, which laws cannot well provide against, which may, _by the example and severity of virtuous men, be easily discountenanced and by degrees suppressed_. Blackstone, speaking of the king’s ordinary revenue, observes that a seventh branch might also be computed to have arisen from wine licences, or the rents payable to the Crown by such persons as are licensed to sell wine by retail throughout England, except in a few privileged places. These were _first settled on the Crown_ by the statute 12 Car. II. c. 25, and, together with the hereditary excise, made up the equivalent in value for the loss sustained by the prerogative in the abolition of the military tenures, and the right of pre-emption and purveyance; but this revenue was abolished by 30 Geo. II. c. 19, and an annual sum of upwards of 7,000_l._ per annum, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licences, was settled on the Crown in its stead.[164] The prices of wines were fixed anew. By 12 Car. II. it was provided that no canary, muskadel, or aligant, or other Spanish or sweet wines, should be sold by retail for over 1_s._ 6_d._ the quart; Gascoigne and French wines limited to 8_d._ the quart, Rhenish wines to 12_d._