are to the meaner people, meat,
drink, and clothes; that they depend upon them alone for sustenance
and warmth, and that they desire to forget their wants in drunkenness
rather than supply them. If we, therefore, examine this question with
regard to trade, we shall find, that the money which is spent in
drunkenness for the advantage only of one distiller, would support, if
otherwise expended, a great number of labourers, husbandmen, and
traders; since one man employed at the still may supply with the means
of debauchery such numbers as could not be furnished with innocent
victuals and warm clothes, but by the industry of many hands, and the
concurrence of many trades.

Numbers, my lords, are necessary to success in commerce as in war; if
the manufacturers be few, labour will be dear, and the value of the
commodity must always be proportioned to the price of labour.

These, my lords, are the arguments by which I have hitherto been
incited to oppose this bill, which I have not found that any of its
defenders can elude or repel; for they content themselves with a
cowardly concession to the multitude, allow them to proceed in
wickedness, confess they have found themselves unable to oppose their
sovereign pleasure, or to withhold them from pursuing their own
inclinations; and, therefore, have sagaciously contrived a scheme, by
which they hope to gain some advantage from the vices which they
cannot reform.

But who, my lords, can, without horrour and indignation, hear those
who are entrusted with the care of the publick, contriving to take
advantage of the ruin of their country?

Let others, my lords, vote as their consciences will direct them, I
shall likewise follow the dictates of my heart, and shall avoid any
concurrence with a scheme, which, though it may for a time benefit the
government, must destroy the strength and virtue of the people, and at
once impair our trade and depopulate our country.

Lord CARTERET then rose up, and spoke in substance as follows:--My
lords, the warmth with which this debate has been hitherto carried on,
and with which the progress of this bill has been opposed, is, in my
opinion, to be imputed to strong prejudices, formed when the question
was first proposed; by which the noble lords have been incited to warm
declamations and violent invectives; who, having once heated their
minds with suspicions, have not been able to consider the propositions
before them with calmness and impartialit