When the act was passed, making it a penalty of two hundred pounds to
use any _drug, ingredient_, or _material_, except malt and hops, in
the brewing of beer, Alderman Wood obtained a patent for making of
colouring, to heighten the colour of porter. This colouring was made of
scorched or burnt malt, and it was mashed the same as common malt, which
produced a colouring of the consistency of treacle, and having nearly
its appearance. As this patent was very much approved of, almost every
porter brewer in England used it in the colouring their porter; and
amongst that number I was not only a customer of the worthy alderman for
colouring, but I was also a considerable purchaser of hops from the firm
of Wood, Wiggan & Co. in Falcon Square. I had just got down a fresh
cask of this colouring, and it was standing at the entrance door of the
brewery, where it had been rolled off the dray, when news was brought me
that the new exciseman had seized the cask of colouring, and had taken
it down to the excise office. I immediately wrote to Wood, Wiggan & Co.
to inform them of the circumstance; upon which they immediately applied
to the board of excise in London, and by the return of post I received
a letter from Messrs. Wood, to say, that an order was gone off, by the
same post, to direct the officers of excise in Bristol to restore the
cask of colouring without delay; and almost as soon as this letter had
come to hand, and before I could place it upon the file, one of the
exciseman came quite out of breath to say that an order had arrived from
the board of excise in London, to restore the cask of colouring, and it
was quite at my service, whenever I pleased to send for it. I wrote back
a letter by the fellow, to say, that as the exciseman had seized and
carried away from my brewery a cask of colouring, which was allowed by
the board of excise to be perfectly legal to use, as it was made of malt
and hops only, unless, within two hours of that time, they caused it to
be restored to the very spot from whence it was illegally removed, I
would direct an action to be commenced against them. In less than an