They leagued themselves together and ruled the market; they boycotted the government and the other dealers; they established a close monopoly and kept it strictly in their own hands.

When a vessel arrived with spirits, they allowed nobody to buy but themselves, and they forced the owner to sell to them at a price named by themselves--and it was always low enough.

They bought rum at an average of two dollars a gallon and sold it at an average of ten.

They made rum the currency of the country--for there was little or no money--and they maintained their devastating hold and kept the colony under their heel for eighteen or twenty years before they were finally conquered and routed by the government.
Meantime, they had spread intemperance everywhere.

And they had squeezed farm after farm out of the settlers hands for rum, and thus had bountifully enriched themselves.