The exuberant display of wealth in our shops was the sight
which most amazed a learned foreigner of distinction who lately resided
among us: his expression, I remember, was, that "_they seemed to be
bursting with opulence into the streets_." The documents which throw
light on this subject are not many, but they all meet in the same point:
all concur in exhibiting an increase. The most material are the general
licenses[53] which the law requires to be taken out by all dealers in
excisable commodities. These seem to be subject to considerable
fluctuations. They have not been so low in any year of the war as in the
years 1788 and 1789, nor ever so high in peace as in the first year of
the war. I should next state the licenses to dealers in spirits and
wine; but the change in them which took place in 1789 would give an
unfair advantage to my argument. I shall therefore content myself with
remarking, that from the date of that change the spirit licenses kept
nearly the same level till the stoppage of the distilleries in 1795. If
they dropped a little, (and it was but little,) the wine licenses,
during the same time, more than countervailed that loss to the revenue;
and it is remarkable with regard to the latter, that in the year 1796,
which was the lowest in the excise duties on wine itself, as well as in
the quantity imported, more dealers in wine appear to have been licensed
than in any former year, excepting the first year of the war.
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