England, our calicoes might be transported to foreign markets." At this time the linen manulactured at home probably did not supply a thousandth part of the consumption. Female dresses had been wont to be principally made of French cambrics, French and Silesia lawns, and other flaxen fabrics of Flanders and Germany; but these fabrics were now beginning to be pretty generally supplanted by the muslins of India. Plain calicoes were also now brought in considerable quantities from India to be printed in England, in imitation of the Indian printed chintzes, the bringing home of which was at last prohibited altogether, for the better encouragement of the English printing business.
It was during the present period that Tea was first brought to England. Known from the remotest antiquity in China and Japan, tea is mentioned under the name of sah as the common beverage of the Chinese by the Arabian merchant Soliman, who wrote an account of his travels in the East in the year 850. The earliest European writers, however, by whom it is mentioned, are some of the Jesuit missionaries who visited China and Japan a little before the middle of the sixteenth century, and who describe it in their letters under the names of cha, cia, tchia, and thee. It appears to have been first imported, at least in any quantity, by the Dutch East India Company soon after the beginning of the seventeenth century; and by them the small demand of Europe during the greater part of that century was principally supplied. Tea is not enumerated, any more than coffee or chocolate, in the table of rates appended to the tonnage and poundage or customs' dues act passed by the Convention Parliament in 1660 (12 Car. II. c. 4) ; but it is mentioned in the act passed in the same year imposing an excise upon beer, ale, and other liquors (12 Car. II. c. 23); two of the rates or duties there enacted being, "For every gallon of coffee made and sold, to be paid by the maker, 4d.;" and, "For every gallon of chocolate, sherbet, and tea, made and sold, to be paid by the maker thereof, 8d." And the tax upon tea continued to be an excise duty, that is to
