should be brought within a year after the debt was contracted. Twelve months later, the same schedule was readopted, except that the rate for cider and perry was fixed at two shillings six pence, or twenty-five pounds of tobacco a gallon.[1]
In 1668, there were so many taverns and tippling-houses in the Colony, that it was found necessary to reduce the number in each county to one or two, unless, for the accommodation of travellers, more should be needed at ports, ferries, and the crossings of great roads, in addition to that which was erected at the court-house. All persons who conducted drinking-shops without license were fined two thousand pounds of tobacco.[2] The rates adopted for liquors in 1666, and readopted in 1667, having been found in 1671 to be too high in some instances, were materially lessened; those for Portuguese, Spanish, and French wines were retained, while those for brandy, English spirits, and “Virginia drams” were cut down from sixteen shillings, or one hundred and sixty pounds of tobacco a gallon, to ten shillings, or one hundred pounds. The price of beer, which had been valued at four shillings a gallon, and of cider and perry, which had been valued at two shillings and six pence, was fixed at two shillings, or twenty pounds of tobacco a gallon. If the beer had been brewed with molasses, one shilling, or ten pounds, was the charge.[3]
In 1676, during the supremacy of Nathaniel Bacon, at which time so many laws were passed for the purpose of suppressing long-standing abuses, a legislative attempt was made to enforce what practically amounted to general prohibition. The licenses of all inns, alehouses, and tippling-houses, except those at James City, and at the two
