ibit
of more value, and yet at a lower rate.

No sooner, my lords, will this bill make drunkenness unexpensive and
commodious, no sooner will shops be opened in every corner of the
streets, in every petty village, and in every obscure cellar for the
retail of these liquors, than the workrooms will be forsaken, when the
artificer has, by the labour of a small part of the day, procured what
will be sufficient to intoxicate him for the remaining hours; for he
will hold it ridiculous to waste any part of his life in superfluous
diligence, and will readily assign to merriment and frolicks that time
which he now spends in useful occupations.

But such is the quality of these liquors, that he will not long be
able to divide his life between labour and debauchery, he will soon
find himself disabled by his excesses from the prosecution of his
work, and those shops which were before abandoned for the sake of
pleasure, will soon be made desolate by sickness; those who were
before idle, will become diseased, and either perish by untimely
deaths, or languish in misery and want, an useless burden to the
publick.

Nor, my lords, will the nation only suffer by the deduction of such
numbers from useful employments, but by the addition of great
multitudes to those who must be supported by the charity of the
publick. The manufacturer, who by the use of spirituous liquors
weakens his limbs or destroys his health, at once, takes from the
community to which he belongs, a member by which the common stock was
increased, and by leaving a helpless family behind him, increases the
burden which the common stock must necessarily support. And the trader
or husbandman is obliged to pay more towards the maintenance of the
poor, by the same accident which diminishes his trade or his harvest,
which takes away part of the assistance which he received, and raises
the price of the rest.

That these liquors, my lords, liquors of which the strength is
heightened by distillation, have a natural tendency to inflame the
blood, to consume the vital juices, destroy the force of the vessels,
contract the nerves, and weaken the sinews, that they not only
disorder the mind for a time, but by a frequent use precipitate old
age, exasperate diseases, and multiply and increase all the
infirmities to which the body of man is liable, is generally known to
all whose regard to their own health, or study to preserve that of
others, has at any time engaged them in such