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tribution to the gravity of the case. The soldiers of the Continental armies received regular rations of liquor, 1 and at the expiration of the war carried back to their respective communities the habits of intemperance which in many cases their army life had strengthened. Rum was more and more coming to be regarded as one of the necessities of life; 2 and with the revival of industry and commerce after the war the business of distilling mounted rapidly to amazing proportions. 3
A growing uneasiness over the social and economic con
- 1 Hatch, The Administration of the American Revolutionary Army, pp. 89 et seq. The supplies of beer, cider, and rum furnished the armies were not always held to be adequate. After the battle of Brandywine, Congress ordered thirty hogsheads of rum distributed among the soldiers as a tribute to their gallant conduct in that battle. C/. One Hundred Years of Temperance, New York, 1886, article by Daniel Dorchester on "The Inception of the Temperance Reformation", p. 113, for comments on the effects of the return of drunken soldiers to the ranks of citizenship.
- 2 Weeden, op. cit., vol. ii, p. 883, supplies the following concerning the character of the coasting and river trade, which the exigencies of the war greatly stimulated: "A cargo from Boston to Great Barrington and Williamstown contained u hdds. and 6 tierces of rum, 3 bbls. of wine, 2 do. of brandy, Yi bale of cotton, and i small cask of indigo. The proportion of ' wet goods ' to the small quantity of cotton and indigo is significant, and indicates the prevailing appetites ".
- 3 In 1783 Massachusetts had no fewer than sixty-three distilleries. In 1788 this state distilled 1,475,509 gallons of spirits from foreign, and 11,490 gallons from domestic materials. From 1790 to 1800 in the United States, 23,148,404 gallons of spirits were distilled from molasses; of this 6,322,640 gallons were exported, leaving a quantity for home consumption so large as to supply its own comment. Low grain prices, together with the difficulty of gaining access to the molasses markets, hastened a transition to grain distilling near the end of the eighteenth century, with the result that in 1810 Mr. Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, reported not less than 9,000,000 gallons of spirits as having been distilled from grain and fruit in 1801. Bishop, History of American Manufactures, vol. ii, pp. 30, 65, 83, 152; Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, p. 230.
