14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, The Monk's Tale, lines 388-390
Nevertheless, when wedded, 'twould appear
They lived in joy and all felicity,
For each of them held other lief and dear.
1865 May, Three Days at Camp Douglass, in Our Young Folks: An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls, volume I, number V, page 296:
I myself had 'bout as lief be outside of [the prison] as inside [...]
1866, The Atlantic Monthly, November, 1866, Vol. XVIII, "The Progress of Prussia":
So intense is French hatred of Prussia, that it is not too much to say that, last summer, the French would almost as lief have seen the Russians in Paris as the Prussians in Vienna.