Modern temperance societies were, as their name indicates, associations of earnest men whose object was to check drunkenness, and their scope was at first limited to the recommendation of abstinence from spirits. On that basis the first temperance society was founded at Boston, U.S.A., according to some authorities, on February 1824,[378] whilst others say in February 1826.[379] In the New World they spread with marvellous rapidity; for we are told that in 1829 there had been formed more than 1000 temperance societies; that upwards of fifty distilleries had been stopped, above 400 merchants had relinquished the sale of spirits, and upwards of 1200 drunkards had been reformed. As a proof that the change was not merely hypothetical, it was shown that in 1824 the imported spirits amounted to 5,285,000 gallons, whilst in 1830 the imports had fallen off to 1,195,000 gallons.[380] All good citizens co-operated in the work of reformation. Shipowners paid higher wages to temperance captains, and the Boston Insurance Company agreed to return five per cent. on the premium of every vessel navigated without spirituous liquors, as our marine insurance companies might well do in England, with great pecuniary benefit to themselves. Even the war authorities aided the movement by issuing an order prohibiting the distribution of spirits amongst the army, and substituting eight pounds of sugar and four pounds of coffee with every 100 rations, as an equivalent for the spirits formerly in use. In 1834 the number of temperance societies had increased to about 7000, reckoning two millions of members, and a thousand ships were sailing without spirits on board.[381]