""It is time for our smarmy British Friends to face the truth in this issue, and that is that the excise tax was a much resented British institution,""

Charming turn of phrase, even if it prefaced something of moment, and accuracy.

However, my ill informed friend, if you were to take the trouble to do your homework, you would find excise taxes being levied at least as far back as Ancient Persia, Rome (including Roman Britain), Carthage, and continuing through mediaeval China, Norman Britain, France, and Italy, and on to present day America.

So this British institution spread backwards in time?

And your revolution doesn't seem to have stopped it

Don T.