It is rather difficult to reconcile this account of the prevalence of the use of tea as a drink with that of other writers of the period. Thus Pepys writing a year afterwards under date September 25, 1660, says: “I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I never had drank before.” This clearly points to the novelty of the practice in 1660 for Samuel Pepys was Secretary of the Admiralty, and a public man of keen observation, and it is almost impossible if tea was commonly sold as a drink at this time that he should have been unaware of the fact. Macaulay[6] also mentions that about this time tea “had been handed round to be stared at.” It seems therefore clear that the herb was quite recently introduced in 1660, and it is possible that Rugge under the name of “tee” is referring to hot infusions of other leaves for it is well known that herbs were commonly used for making different sorts of teas as sage tea, &c.[7] The first official notice of tea is in the Act of Parliament (12 Carolus II., c 23), by which a duty of eightpence was charged on every gallon of coffee, chocolate, sherbet, and tea made for sale. In 1662 Charles II. married Princess Catherine of Portugal, and the Poet Waller has immortalised tea-drinking by a birthday ode in her honour. The muse’s friend, tea, does our fancy aid, Repress those vapours which the head invade, And keeps that palace of the soul serene Fit, on her birthday, to salute the Queen. Two years later the King was a recipient of the then valuable gift of 2lb. 2oz. of tea from the East India Company. In Pepys Diary under the date of June 28, 1667, we read “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.” Tea, therefore, was just coming into vogue. In 1669 the East India Company received two canisters containing 143¹⁄₂ pounds; the price at this time was sixty shillings a pound. The Company imported 4713 pounds in 1678, but this amount probably glutted the market, for in the six subsequent years the imports were quite inconsiderable. In 1697-99 the imports averaged 20,000, in 1700-08 they reached 80,000 pounds, in 1728 over a million pounds, in 1754 four and a half million, in 1763 six million, and in 1779 nearly ten million pounds.[8] It is not necessary to follow the imports during the whole of the 18th century, speaking generally it was found that excessive duties led to smaller imports, and at the same time to a large increase of smuggling and other irregularities. Since 1800 there has been an enormous increase of consumption in the United Kingdom, as will be seen from the following figures:-- TABLE A.