trample upon common fenfe, and to violate the rules of decency as well as of reafon. For when did any man hear that a commodity was prohibited

by licensing its fale, or that to offer and refufe is the ⚫ fame action.

'It is indeed pleaded that it will be made dearer by the tax which is propofed, and that the increase of the price will diminish the numbers of the purchasers, but it is at the fame time expected, that this tax fhall supply the expence of a war on the Continent. It is 'afferted therefore, that the confumption of fpirits 'will be hindered, and yet, that it will be fuch as may be expected to furnish, from a very small tax, a revenue fufficient for the support of armies, for the ' re-establishment of the Auriftan* family, and the repreffion of the attempts of Blefufcu †.

• Surely, my lords, these expectations are not very confiftent, nor can it be imagined that they are both formed in the fame head, though they may be ex

preffed by the fame mouth. It is, however, fome ⚫ recommendation of a statesman, when, of his affer<tions, one can be found reasonable or true, and in this, praise cannot be denied to our prefent minifters; for though it is undoubtedly falfe that this tax will leffen the confumption of fpirits, it is certainly true that it will produce a very large revenue, a revenue that will not fail but with the people from whose debaucheries it arifes.

Our ministers will therefore have the fame honour with their predeceffors, of having given rife to a new fund, not indeed for the payment of our debts, + France.

* Auftrian.

but for much more valuable purposes, for the ⚫ exaltation of our hearts under oppreffion, for the elevation of our fpirits amidst mifcarriages and difap⚫pointments, and for the chearful fupport of thofe debts which we have loft hopes of paying. They

are refolved, my lords,

that the nation, which nothing can make wife, fhall, while they are at its head, at least be merry, and fince public happiness is the end of government, they seem to imagine that they fhall deferve applaufe, by an expedient, which will enable every man to lay his cares afleep, to drown forrow, and lofe, in the delights of drunkennefs, both the public miferies < and his own.

Surely, my lords, men of this unbounded benevolence and this exalted genius, deferve fuch honours as were never paid before; they deferve to beftride a butt upon every fign-poft in the metropolis, or <to have their countenances exhibited as tokens where this liquor is to be fold by the license which they ⚫ have procured. They must be at least remembered to future ages as the happy politicians, who after all expedients for raifing taxes had been employed, • discovered a new method of draining the last reliques of the public wealth, and added a new reveC nue to the government; nor will those who fhall hereafter enumerate the feveral funds now established among us, forget, among the benefactors to their country, the illuftrious authors of the drinking fund.

May I be allowed, my lords, to congratulate my ⚫ countrymen and fellow-fubjects upon the happy times which are now approaching, in which no

man

man will be difqualified for the privilege of being drunk? when all difcontent and difloyalty fhall be forgotten, and the people, though now confidered by the miniftry as their enemies, fhall acknowledge the lenity of that government under which all ' restraints are taken away.

But to a bill for fuch defirable purposes, it would 'be proper, my lords, to prefix a preamble in which the kindness of our intentions fhould be more fully

<

explained, that the nation may not mistake our indulgence for cruelty, nor confider their benenefactors as their perfecutors. If therefore this bill ⚫ be confidered and amended, (for why elfe should it ⚫ be confidered?) in a committee, I fhall humbly propofe that it fhall be introduced in this manner: Whereas the defigns of the present miniftry, whatever they are, cannot be executed without a great ' number of mercenaries, which mercenaries cannot be hired without money; and whereas the prefent difpofition of this nation to drunkenness, inclines us to believe, that they will pay more chearfully for the undisturbed enjoyment of diftilled liquors, than for any other conceffion that can be made by the government; be it enacted by the King's most ex'cellent Majefty, that no man fhall hereafter be denied the right of being drunk on the following conditi

<ons.

• This, my lords, to trifle no longer, is the proper preamble to this bill, which contains only the conditions on which the people of this kingdom are to * be allowed henceforward to riot in debauchery, in debauchery licensed by law, and countenanced by the magiftrates, for there is no doubt but thofe on whom

⚫ the inventors of this tax fhall confer authority, will be directed to affift their mafters in their defign, to encourage the confumption of that liquor from ' which fuch large revenues are expected, and to multiply, without end, thofe licenfes which are to pay an yearly tribute to the crown.

By this unbounded licenfe, my lords, that price ' will be leffened, from the increase of which the expectations of the efficacy of this law are pretended, for the number of retailers will leffen the value as in all other cafes, and leffen it more than this tax ⚫ will increase it. Befides, it is to be confidered, that at prefent the retailer expects to be paid for the

danger which he incurs by an unlawful trade, and ' will not trust his reputation or his purse to the mercy ' of his customer, without a profit proportioned to the hazard; but when once the restraint shall be taken away, he will fell for common gain, and it can hardly be imagined, that at present he subjects himself to informations and penalties for lefs than fix-pence a gallon.

"The fpecious pretence on which this bill is founded, and indeed the only pretence that deferves to be termed fpecious, is the propriety of taxing vice; but this maxim of government has, on this occafion, ⚫ been either mistaken or perverted. Vice, my lords, is not, properly, to be taxed but fuppreffed, and heavy taxes are fometimes the only means by which that fuppreffion can be attained. Luxury, my lords, or the excefs of that which is pernicious only by its excess, may very properly be taxed, that such excefs, though not ftrictly unlawful, may be made more difficult; but the use of those things which

are

are fimply hurtful, hurtful in their own nature and in every degree, is to be prohibited. None, my ⚫ lords, ever heard in any nation of a tax upon theft or 'adultery, because a tax implies a license granted for the use of that which is taxed, to all who shall be willing to pay it.

• Drunkenness, my lords, is univerfally, and in all 'circumstances an evil, and therefore ought not to be taxed, but punished, and the means of it not to be made eafy by a flight impoft which none can feel, but to be removed out of the reach of the people, and fecured by the heaviest taxes levied with the. ' utmost rigour. I hope thofe to whofe care the

religion of the nation is particularly configned, will ' unanimously join with me in maintaining the ne'ceffity not of taxing vice but fuppreffing it, and unite

for the rejection of a bill, by which the future as ' well as the present happiness of thousands must be • destroyed *.'

This fpeech is a contraft to that of lord Hardwicke, and to him who uttered it may be applied the character which bishop Burnet gives of Waller, viz.

That he was only concerned to say that which fhould 'make him applauded; he never laid the business of the house to heart, being a vain and empty, though a witty man.'

The fubject of this important debate was a bill to restrain the use of fpirituous liquors, founded on evidence that no less a quantity than seven millions of gallons thereof were yearly diftilled and confumed in this country, and that in many parishes within the

Gent. Mag. 1743, page 625.