hey or their
officers had power to enforce it; but that the justices had not always
been equally zealous in seconding their endeavours; and that it was
impossible to discover all the petty dealers by whom it was infringed,
spirituous liquors still continuing to be sold in small obscure shops,
and at the corners of the streets.

A motion was also made, that three of the physicians of most note for
their learning and experience, should be summoned to attend the house,
to declare their opinion with regard to the effects of spirituous
liquors upon the human body. But this was rejected by 33 against 17.

The bill was read the second time on the day appointed, when the
question being put, whether it should be committed, lord HERVEY rose,
and spoke to the following effect:--

My lords, though I doubt not but the bill now before us will be
promoted in this house, by the same influence by which it has been
conducted through the other; yet I hope its success will be very
different, and that those arts by which its consequences, however
formidable, have been hitherto concealed, or by which those whose
business it was to have detected and exposed them, have been induced
to turn their eyes aside, will not be practised here with the same
efficacy, though they should happen to be attempted with the same
confidence. I hope that zeal for the promotion of virtue, and that
regard to publick happiness, which has on all occasions distinguished
this illustrious assembly, will operate now with uncommon energy, and
prevent the approbation of a bill, by which vice is to be made legal,
by which the fences of subordination are to be thrown down, and all
the order of society, and decency of regular establishments be
obliterated by universal licentiousness, and lost in the wild
confusions of debauchery; of debauchery encouraged by law, and
promoted for the support of measures expensive, ridiculous, and
unnecessary.

A law of so pernicious a tendency shall, at least, not pass through
this house without opposition; nor shall drunkenness be established
among us without the endeavour of one voice, at least, to withhold its
progress; for I now declare that I oppose the commitment of this bill,
and that I am determined to continue my opposition to it in all the
steps by which the forms of our house make it necessary that it should
pass before it can become a law.

Nor do I speak, my lords, on this occasion, with that distrust and
mental hesitation