Brandy for heroes, said Dr. Johnson ; yet the Royal
Navy aban- doned brandy for rum. The Colonial Office has just been investi- gating the how and why and when of that, as the result of questions Prompted by a speech by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Mr. D. R. Rees-Williams, with very interesting results. It all started With an enterprising suggestion made in 1687 by a London merchant who had a plantation in Jamaica (the island had then been British for about thirty years) that His Majesty's ships calling or lying at Jamaica should be supplied by him with “zunune " at is. 6d. a gallon, instead of brandy, "which by the Leakage, Freight, etc., with the first Cost and Cask, is about 4s. 6d. per gallon." So it was ordained by King James II, as one of his last acts before his abdica- tion. The sailors got a pint of rum a day instead of half a pint of brandy, and the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty saved is. 6d. on the change. When Mr. Rees-Williams told me of this, I said that Mr. Pepys must surely have been in on it. And, of course, he was. The warrant prescribing rum ends, "Given at our Court at White- hall this 9th of March, 1687-8, By His Maties Comand, S. Pepys. To the Principall Officers and Cornisrs. of Our Navy." * * * *
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