The women's petition against coffee (1674)

-- Digital version: Janet Clarkson (Australia), Thomas Gloning (Germany), 12.7.2003

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<<Cover>>

THE

WOMEN'S

PETITION

AGAINST

COFFEE

REPRESENTING

TO

PUBLICK CONSIDERATION

THE

Grand INCONVENIENCIES accruing

to their SEX from the Excessive

Use of that Drying, Enfeebling

LIQUOR.

Presented to the Right Honorable the

Keepers of the Liberty of VENUS.

-------------------------------------------------

By a Well-willer

-------------------------------------------------

London, Printed 1674.

<<p.1>>

To the Right Honorable the Keepers

of the Liberties of Venus; The

Worshipful Court of Female-Assistants,

&c.

The Humble Petition and Address of

several Thousands of Buxome Good-Women,

Languishing in Extremity

of Want.

SHEWETH,

THat since 'tis Reckon'd amongst the Glories of

our Native Country, To be A Paradise for Women:

The same in our Apprehensions can consist

in nothing more than the brisk Activity of

our men, who in former Ages were justly esteemed the

Ablest Performers in Christendome; But to our unspeakable

Grief, we find of late a very sensible Decay of that

true Old English Vigour; our Gallants being every way so

Frenchified, that they are become meer Cock-sparrows,

fluttering things that come on Sa sa, with a world of Fury,

<<p.2>>

but are not able to stand to it, and in the very first Charge

fall down flat before us. Never did Men wear greater

Breeches, or carry less in them of any Mettle whatsoever.

There was a glorious Dispensation ('twas surely in the

Golden Age) when Lusty Ladds of seven or eight hundred

years old, Got Sons and Daughters; and we have

read, how a Prince of Spain was forced to make a Law,

that Men should not Repeat the Grand Kindness to their

Wives, above NINE times in a night: But Alas! Alas!

Those forwards Days are gone, The dull Lubbers want a

Spur now, rather than a Bridle: being so far from doing

any works of Supererregation that we find them not

capable of performing those Devoirs which their Duty, and

our Expectations Exact.

The Occasion of which Insufferable Disaster, after a serious

Enquiry, and Discussion of the Point by the Learned

of the Faculty, we can Attribute to nothing more than

the Excessive use of that Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish

Liquor called COFFEE, which Riffling Nature

of her Choicest Treasures, and Drying up the Radical

Moisture, has so Eunucht our Husbands, and Crippled

our more kind Gallants, that they are become as Impotent,

as Age, and as unfruitful as those Desarts whence that

unhappy Berry is said to be brought.

For the continual sipping of this pittiful drink is enough

to bewitch Men of two and twenty, and tie up the Codpice-point

without a Charm. It renders them that use it as Lean

as Famine, as Rivvel'd as Envy, or an old meager Hagg

over-ridden by an Incubus. They come from it with

nothing moist but their snotty Noses, nothing stiffe but their

Joints, nor standing but their Ears: They pretend 'twill

keep them Waking, but we find by scurvy Experience, they

<<p.3>>

sleep quietly enough after it. A Betrothed Queen migh

trust her self a bed with one of them, without the nice

Caution of a Sword between them: nor can all the Art

we use revive them from this Lethargy, so unfit they are for

Action, that like young Train-band-men when called

upon Duty, their Amunition is wanting; peradventure

they Present, but cannot give Fire, or at least do but flash

in the pan, instead of doing Execution.

Nor let any Doating Superstitious Cato's shake their

Goatish Beards, and tax us of Immodesty for this Declaration,

since 'tis a publick Grievance, and cries aloud for

Reformation, Weight and Measure, 'tis well known, should

go throughout the world, and there is no torment like

Famishment. Experience witnesses our Damage, and

Necessity (which easily supersedes all the Laws of Decency)

justifies our complaints: For can any Woman of Sense or

Spirit eudure [>endure] with Patience, that when priviledg'd by

Legal Ceremonies, she approaches the Nuptial Bed,

expecting that a Man with Sprightly Embraces, should

Answer the Vigour of her Flames, she on the contrary should

only meet A Bedful of Bones, and hug a meager useless

Corpse rendred as sapless as a Kixe, and dryer than a

Pumice-Stone, by the perpetual Fumes of Tobacco, and

bewitching effects of this most pernitious COFFEE, whereby

Nature is Enfeebled, the Off-spring of our Mighty Ancestors

Dwindled into a Succession of Apes and Pignies: and

---------- The Age of Man

Now Cramp't into an Inch, that was a Span.

Nor is this (though more than enough) All the ground

of our Complaint: For besides, we have reason to apprehend

and grow Jealous, That Men by frequenting these

Stygian Tap-houses will usurp on our Prerogative of

<<p.4>>

Tatling, and soon learn to exeel us in Talkativeness: a

Quality wherein our Sex has ever Claimed preheminence:

For here like so many Frogs in a puddle, they sup muddy

water, and murmur insignificant notes till half a dozen of

them out-babble an equal number of us at a Gossipping, talking

all at once in Confusion, and running from point to

point as insensibly, and as swiftly, as ever the Ingenious

Pole-wheel could run divisions on the Base-viol; yet in all

their prattle every one abounds in his own sense, as stiffly

as a Quaker at the late Barbican dispute, and submits to

the Reasons of no other mortal: so that there being neither

Moderator nor Rules observ'd, you may as soon fill a

Quart pot with Syllogismes, as profit by their Disconrses. [>Discourses.]

Certainly our Coutrymens pallates are become as Fanatical

as their Brains; how else is't possible they should

Apostatize from the good old primitive way of Ale-drinking,

to run a whoreing after such variety of distructive Foraign

Liquors, to trifle away their time, scald their Chops,

and spend their Money, all for a little base, black, thick,

nasty, bitter, stinking, nauseous Puddle-water: Yet (as all

Witches have their Charms) so this ugly Turkish Enchantress

by certain Invisible VVyres attracts both Rich and

Poor; so that those that have scarce Twopence to buy

their Children Bread, must spend a penny each evening in

this Insipid Stuff: Nor can we send one of our Husbands

to Call a Midwife, or borrow a Glister-pipe, but he must stay

an hour by the way drinking his two Dishes, & two Pipes.

At these Houses (as at the Springs in Afric) meet all

sorts of Animals, whence follows the production of a

thousand Monster Opinions and Absurdities; yet for being

dangerous to Government, we dare be their Compurgaters,

as well knowing them to be too tame and too talkative

<<p.5>>

to make any desperate Polititians: For though they may

now and then destroy a Fleet, or kill ten thousand of the French,

more than all the Confederates can do, yet this is still in their

politick Capacities, for by their personal valour they are scarce

fit to be of the Life-guard to a Cherry-tree: And therefore,

though they frequently have hot Contests about most Important

Subjects; as what colour the Red Sea is of; whether the Great

Turk be a Lutheran or a Calvinist; who Cain's Father in Law

was &c. yet they never fight about them with any other save

our Weapon, the Tongue.

Some of our Sots pretend tippling of this boiled Soot cures

them of being Drunk; but we have reason rather to conclude it

makes them so, because we find them not able to stand after it:

"Tis at best but a kind of Earthing a Fox to hunt him more eagerly

afterward: A rare method of good-husbandry, to enable a

man to be drunk three times a day! Just such a Remedy for

Drunkenness, as the Popes allowing of Stews, is a means to prevent

Fornication: The Coffee-house being in truth, only a Pimp to

the Tavern, a relishing soop preparative to a fresh debauch:

For when people have swill'd themselves with a morning

draught of more Ale than a Brewers horse can carry, hither

they come for a pennyworth of Settle-brain, where they are

sure to meet enow lazy pragmatical Companions, that resort

here to prattle of News, that they neither understand, nor are

concerned in; and after an hours impertinent Chat, begin to

consider a Bottle of Claret would do excellent well before

Dinner; wherupon to the Bush they all march together, till every

one of them is as Drunk as a Drum, and then back again to the

Coffe-house to drink themselves sober; where three or four

dishes a piece, and smoaking, makes their throats as dry as

Mount Ætna enflam'd with Brimstone; so that they must away

to the next Red Lattice to quench them with a dozen or two of

<<p.6>>

Ale; which at last growing nauseous, one of them begins to extol the

blood of the Grape, what rare Langoon, and Racy Canary may be had

at the Miter: Saist thou so? cries another, Let's then go and replenish there,

with our Earthen Vessels; So once more they troop to the Sack-shop till

they are drunker than before; and then by a retrograde motion, stagger

back to Soberize themselves with Coffee; Thus like Tennis Balls between

two Rackets, the Fopps our Husbands are bandied to and fro all day

between the Coffee-house and Tavern, whilst we poor Souls sit mopeing all

alone till Twelve at night, and when at last they come to bed smoakt like a

Westphalia Hogs-head we have no more comfort of them, than from a

shotten Herring or a dryed Bulrush; which forces us to take up this

Lamentation and sing,

Tom Farthing, Tom Farthing, where hast thou been, Tom Farthing?

Twelve a Clock e'er you come in, Two a Clock e'er you begin, And

then at last can do nothing: Would make a Woman weary, weary,

weary, would make a Woman wear, &c

Wherefore the Premises considered, and to the end that our Just

Rights may be restored, and all the Antient Priviledges of our Sex preserved

inviolable; That our Husbands may give us some other Testimonies

of their being Men, besides their Beards and wearing of empty Pantaloons:

That they no more run the hazard of being Cuckol'd by Dildo's:

But returning to the good old strengthning Liquors of our Forefathers;

that Natures Exchequer may once again be replenisht, and a Race of

Lusty Hero's begot, able by their Atchievments, to equal the Glories

of our Ancesters.

We Humbly Pray, That you our Trusty Patrons would improve your

Interest, that henceferth [>henceforth] the Drinking COFFEE may on severe

penalties be forbidden to all Persons under the Age of Threescore; and that

instead thereof, Lusty nappy Beer, Cock-Ale, Cordial Canaries, Restoring

Malago's, and Back-recruiting Chocholes be Recommended to General

Use, throughout the Utopian Territories.

In hopes of which Glorious Reformation,

your Petitioners shall readily Prostrate

themselves, and ever Pray, &c.

FINIS.

12.7.2003