Pleasures of their _Deshabille_ with any manner of Confidence, they give place to Men who have Business or Good Sense in their Faces, and come to the Coffee house, either to transact Affairs or enjoy Conversation.' [Footnote 297: _Spectator_, 49.] News was, of course, one of the prime objects of these gatherings. 'I love News extreamly, I have read Three News Letters to day. I go from Coffee House to Coffee House all day on Purpose,'[298] was literally true of some men. Not that their little newspapers gave them much--but of them hereafter. Yet there was a chance of hearing some news before it got into the papers; and the _quidnuncs_ would go to the Windsor, where was to be had 'also the Translation of the Harlem Courant, soon after the Post is come,' or to Grigsby's, where 'all Foreign News is taken in, and Translated into English immediately after the arrival of any Mail,' or to Elford's, where 'is to be seen and read Gratis, the Journal of the famous Voyage of the Duke and Dutchess Privateer of Bristol that took the rich Aquiápulca Ship containing many remarkable Transactions. Also an Account of a Man living alone 4 Years and 4 Months in the Island of John Fernando, which they brought with them.' This was, of course, Alexander Selkirk, who was brought off the island on February 12, 1709; and this log, or the coffee-house gossip anent it, probably furnished the inspiration for 'Robinson Crusoe,' which Defoe published in 1719. [Footnote 298: _The Scowrers._] We have seen how the coffee-house keepers tried to advance their beverages from 1_d._ to 1-1/2_d._ because of the rise in coffee; but the effort was spasmodic, and did not last. They had a far better cry in 1712, as we find in the _Daily Courant_ of August 8 in that year. 'These are to give Notice, That the Coffee Men by reason of the present Taxes on Coffee, Tea, Paper, Candles, and Stamps on all Newspapers, find themselves under a necessity of advancing some of their Liquors to the prices following; viz, Coffee 2_d._ per dish: Green Tea 3 halfpence; and all Drams 2_d._ per Dram: to commence from this day.' Let us hope when they got this huge advance they made their tea stronger, and did not give their customers 'that pall'd Stuff too often found in mean Coffee Houses.'[299] [Footnote 299: Motteux, in the Preface to his _Poem in Praise of Tea_.]