nquiry, whether they who oppose the bill will grant their
opposition hypocritical, or their patriotism languid, I shall lay my
opinion of this new regulation before your lordships with equal
freedom, though with less luxuriance of imagination, and less gaiety
of language.

Of this bill, notwithstanding the acuteness with which it has been
examined, and the acrimony with which it has been censured, I am not
afraid to affirm, that it is neither wicked nor absurd, that all its
parts are consistent, and that the effects to be expected from it are
sobriety and health. I cannot find, upon the closest examination,
either that it will defeat its own end, or that the end proposed by it
is different from that which is professed.

The charge of encouraging vice and tolerating drunkenness, with which
the defenders of this bill have been so liberally aspersed, may be, in
my opinion, more justly retorted upon those that oppose it; who,
though they plead for the continuance of a law, rigorous, indeed, and
well intended, own that it has, by the experience of several years,
been found ineffectual.

What, my lords, can a drunkard or a profligate be supposed to wish,
but that the law may still remain in its present state, that he may
still be pursued in a track by which he knows how to escape, and
opposed by restraints which he is able to break? What can he desire,
but that the book of statutes should lie useless, and that no laws
should be made against him, but such as cannot be put in execution?

The defects of the present law, are, indeed, very numerous; nor ought
it to be continued, even though no other were to be substituted. It
seems to suppose the use of distilled liquors absolutely unlawful,
and, therefore, imposed upon licenses a duty so enormous, that only
three were taken in the whole kingdom, and the people were therefore
obliged to obtain by illegal methods, what they could not persuade
themselves wholly to forbear.

The method of detecting offenders was likewise such as gave
opportunity for villany to triumph over innocence, and for perjury to
grow rich with the plunder of the poor. Even charity itself might be
punished by it; and he that gave a glass of spirits to a man fainting
under poverty, or sickness, or fatigue, might be punished as a
retailer of spirits without a license.

These defects, which were not seen when the law was made, soon excited
a dislike. No man enforced the execution of it, because every man kn