orrupt the mind, weaken the limbs, impair
virtue, and shorten life, any arguments in favour of those who
manufacture them come too late, since no advantage can be equivalent
to the loss of honesty and life. When the noble lord has urged that
the distillery employs great numbers of hands, and, therefore, ought
to be encouraged, may it not, upon his own concession, be replied,
that those numbers are employed in murder, and that their trade ought,
like that of other murderers, to be stopped? When he urges that much
of our grain is consumed in the still, may we not answer, and answer
irresistibly, that it is consumed by being turned into poison, instead
of bread? And can a stronger argument be imagined for the suppression
of this detestable business, than that it employs multitudes, and that
it is gainful and extensive?

Nor can I discover, my lords, how the care of preserving the
distillery is consistent with the ends which the preamble in this bill
declares to be proposed, or which the advocates for it appear to
desire. If the consumption of distilled spirits is to be hindered, how
is the distillery to remain uninjured? If the trade of distilling is
not to be impaired, what shall hinder the consumption of spirits? So
far as this bill operates, the distillers must be impoverished by it;
and if they may properly and justly suffer a small diminution of their
profit for a small advantage to the publick, why will not a greater
benefit be equivalent to a greater diminution?

Nothing, my lords, is more apparent, than that the real design of this
bill, however its defenders may endeavour to conceal it in the mist of
sophistry, is to lay only such a tax as may increase the revenue; and
that they have no desire of suppressing that vice which may be made
useful to their private purpose, nor feel any regret to fill the
exchequer by the slaughter of the people.

Lord AYLESFORD then rose up, and spoke to the following purpose:--My
lords, the noble lord who spoke last in defence of this new scheme,
appears to have imbibed very strong prejudices in favour of the
distillery, from which he finds it practicable to draw large sums for
the support of the measures which have been already formed, and which
he, therefore, considers as the most important and beneficial trade of
the British nation.

It is not improbable, my lords, that in a short time all the
provisions which have been made by the wisdom of our ancestors for the
support of th