Excessive drinking was common in society. Since the Methuen treaty of 1703 port was the wine most drunk. A genuine port cost about two shillings a bottle, but the wine was largely adulterated on importation, and one stingy lord is said to have recommended his guests to drink his port instead of a more expensive wine by assuring them that he knew that it was good as he made it himself.[178] Men would constantly drink two bottles of port apiece at a sitting, and sometimes three and even more, and would appear in parliament, in the theatre, or in a drawing-room in a state of drunkenness. A treaty with France in 1786 largely increased the consumption of French wines, but this change, which favoured sobriety, was ended by the war. Nevertheless, drunkenness was less general than earlier in the century, and, except in the Prince of Wales's set, seems to have decreased during the war with France. Duels were frequent, and, though towards the end of our period they were increasingly condemned by religious people, they were approved of by society at large. For some time men of fashion dressed in velvets and silks of various hues, but during the American war Fox, once the most extravagant of "macaronis," and his friends showed their political sympathies by carelessness in dress, and their example was largely followed. Men's dress, however, did not decline until about 1793 when the whigs imitated the severity affected by the French republicans. Wigs were discarded early in the reign, except by professional men, and hair-powder began to fall out of fashion by the end of the century. Then, too, ladies' dress became more simple, chiefly because improvements in the textile manufactures provided them with materials at once simple and pleasing.