kindred
articles to have always simultaneously increased, or diminished, in
ratio with the general prosperity of the kingdom, and the prevalence
of temperate habits among the community.

I shall now proceed to trace the fluctuations in the consumption of
coffee.

At the close of the last century the consumption of coffee was under
one million pounds yearly; the only descriptions then known in the
London market were Grenada, Jamaica, and Mocha--the two former
averaging about L5 per cwt., and the latter L20 per cwt. Grenada
coffee is now unknown, and Ceylon and Brazil are the largest
producers. In 1760, the total quantity of coffee consumed in the
United Kingdom was 262,000 lbs., or three quarters of an ounce to each
person in the population. In 1833 the quantity was 20,691,000 lbs., or
11/2 lb. to each person. When first introduced into England, about the
middle of the 17th century, coffee was sold in a liquid state, and
paid a duty of 4d. per gallon; afterwards, until the year 1733, the
duty was 2s. per lb.; it was then reduced to 1s. 6d., since which it
has paid various rates of duty; in the year 1824 it was settled at 6d.
per lb. All descriptions of coffee now pay but 3d. per lb.

The consumption of coffee in the United Kingdom, for several years
previous to 1825, varied from seven millions and a half to eight
millions and a half pounds in round numbers, the duty being 1s. per
lb. on British plantation, 1s. 6d. per lb. on East India, and 2s. 6d.
per lb. on foreign. From the 5th of April of that year those rates
were each reduced to one half, and the immediate consequence was a
steady increase of the consumption until 1831, when it amounted to
23,000,000 lbs. The consumption continued, without any material
variation, at this rate, or to advance by very slow degrees, until
1836, when the duty on East India coffee was reduced to 6d. per lb.;
and this change had precisely the same effect as the previous one, for
the consumption again advanced to upwards of 26,000,000 lbs., which
was then considered, in a memorial of the London trade, to be as much
as our colonies were capable of producing! We now find, however, one
small island, Ceylon, producing a fourth more than this amount
annually.

The Belgians, a population of 4,500,000, consume more than 33,000,000
lbs. of coffee annually; quite as much as is used by the whole
35,000,000 French. The duty on 100 lbs. of coffee in France is more
than the common original cost--