ke no alteration. There is no real
prohibition now, there will be no nominal prohibition hereafter; and,
therefore, the law will only produce what its advocates expect from
it, a yearly addition to the revenue of the government. But, my lords,
let us at last inquire to what it is to be imputed, that the present
law swells the statute book to no purpose? and why this pernicious
trade is carried on with confidence and security, in opposition to the
law? It will not surely be confessed, that the government has wanted
authority to execute its own laws; that the legislature has been awed
by the populace, by the dregs of the populace, the drunkards and the
beggars! Yet when the provisions made for the execution of a law so
salutary, so just, and so necessary, were found defective, why were
not others substituted of greater efficacy? Why, when one informer was
torn in pieces, were there not new securities proposed to protect
those who should by the same offence displease the people afterwards?

The law, my lords, has failed of a great part of its effect; but it
has failed by cowardice on one part, and negligence on another; and
though the duty, as it was laid, was in itself somewhat invidious, it
would, however, have been enforced, could the revenue have gained as
much by the punishment as was gained by the toleration of debauchery.
It has, however, some effect; it may be imagined, that no man can be
trusted where he is not known, and that some men are known too well to
be trusted; and, therefore, many must be occasionally hindered from
drinking spirits, while the law remains in its present state; who,
when houses are set open by license, will never want an opportunity of
complying with their appetites, but may at any time enter confidently,
and call for poison, and mingle with numerous assemblies met only to
provoke each other to intemperance by a kind of brutal emulation and
obstreperous merriment.

This bill, therefore, my lords, is, as it has been termed, only an
experiment; an experiment, my lords, of a very daring kind, which none
would hazard but empirical politicians. It is an experiment to
discover how far the vices of the populace may be made useful to the
government, what taxes may be raised upon poison, and how much the
court may be enriched by the destruction of the subjects.

The tendency of this bill is so evident, that those who appeared as
its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by
c