Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/163

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"THE FOOD OF THE GODS."

with cocoa, in anger and wrath we have hurled overboard this good commodity, not regarding the worth of it."

About the time of the Commonwealth, however, the new drink began to make its way among the English, and the Public Advertiser of 1657 contains the notice that "in Bishopsgate Street, in Queen's Head Alley, at a Frenchman's house, is an excellent West India drink, called chocolate, to be sold, where you may have it ready at any time, and also unmade, at reasonable rates." These rates appear to have been from 10s. to 15s. a pound, a price which made chocolate, rather than coffee, the beverage of the aristocracy, who flocked to the chocolate-houses soon to spring up in the fashionable centres. Here, records a Spanish visitor to London, were to be found such members of the polite world as were not at the same time members of either House. The chocolate-houses were thus the forerunners of our modern clubs, and one of them, "The Cocoa Tree," early the headquarters of the Jacobite party, became subsequently recognised as the club of the