e against vice, and
promote virtue with incessant assiduity, notwithstanding the
difficulties that may for a time hinder the wisest and most rigorous
measures from success. That governour who desists from his endeavours
of reformation, because they have been once baffled, in reality
abandons his station and deserts his charge, nor deserves any other
character than that of laziness, negligence, or cowardice.

The preservation of virtue where it subsists, and the recovery of it
where it is lost, are the only valuable purposes of government. Laws
which do not promote these ends are useless, and those that obviate
them are pernicious. The government that takes advantage of wicked
inclinations, by accident predominant in the people, and, for any
temporary convenience, instead of leading them back to virtue, plunges
them deeper into vice, is no longer a sacred institution, because it
is no longer a benefit to society. It is from that time a system of
wickedness, in which bad ends are promoted by bad means, and one crime
operates in subordination to another.

But, my lords, it is not necessary to show the unreasonableness of the
inference, because the assertion from which it is deduced cannot be
proved. That the excessive use of distilled liquors cannot be
prevented, is a very daring paradox, not only contrary to the
experience of all past times, but of the present; for the law which is
now to be repealed, did in a great degree produce the effects desired
from it, till the execution of it was suspended, not by the inability
of the magistrates, or obstinacy of the people, but by the artifice of
ministers, who promoted the sale of spirits secretly, for the same
reason which incites our present more daring politicians to establish
the use of them by a law.

The defects of this law, for that it was defective cannot be denied,
were in the manner of levying the duty; for had half the duty that was
demanded from the unlicensed retailers, been required from the
distiller, there had been no need of informations; nor had we been
stunned with the dismal accounts of the rage and cruelty of the
people, or the violent deaths of those who endeavoured to grow rich by
commencing prosecutions. The duty had been regularly paid, the liquors
had been made too dear for common use, and the name of spirits had
been in a short time forgotten amongst us.

From this defect, my lords, arose all the difficulties and
inconveniencies that have impeded