PLAIN OYSTER SOUP.

Take two quarts of large oysters. Strain their liquor into a soup pan;
season it with a tea-spoonful of whole pepper, a tea-spoonful of whole
allspice, the same quantity of whole cloves, and seven or eight blades
of mace. If the oysters are fresh, add a large tea-spoonful of salt; if
they are salt oysters, none is requisite. Set the pan on hot coals, and
boil it slowly (skimming it when necessary) till you find that it is
sufficiently flavoured with the taste of the spice. In the mean time
(having cut out the hard part) chop the oysters fine, and season them
with a powdered nutmeg. Take the liquor from the fire, and strain out
the spice from it. Then return it to the soup pan, and put the chopped
oysters into it, with whatever liquid may have continued about them.
Add a quarter of a pound of butter, divided into little bits and rolled
in flour. Cover the pan, and let it boil hard about five minutes. If
oysters are cooked too much they become tough and tasteless.