almost always inclined, in their
debauches, to quarrels and to bloodshed; they think more highly of
their own merit, and, therefore, more readily conclude themselves
injured; they are wholly divested of fear, insensible of present
danger, superiour to all authority, and, therefore, thoughtless of
future punishment; and what then can hinder them from expressing their
resentment with the most offensive freedom, or pursuing their revenge
with the most daring violence.

Thus, my lords, are forgotten disputes often revived, and after having
been long reconciled, are at last terminated by blows; thus are lives
destroyed upon the most trifling occasions, upon provocations often
imaginary, upon chimerical points of honour, where he who gave the
offence, perhaps without design, supports it only because he has given
it; and he who resents it, pursues his resentment only because he will
not acknowledge his mistake.

Thus are lives lost, my lords, at a time when those who set them to
hazard, are without consciousness of their value, without sense of the
laws which they violate, and without regard to any motives but the
immediate influence of rage and malice.

When we consider, my lords, these effects of drunkenness, it can be no
subject of wonder, that the magistrate finds himself overborne by a
multitude united against him, and united by general debauchery.
Government, my lords, subsists upon reverence, and what reverence can
be paid to the laws, by a crowd, of which every man is exalted by the
enchantment of those intoxicating spirits, to the independence of a
monarch, the wisdom of a legislator, and the intrepidity of a hero?
when every man thinks those laws oppressive that oppose the execution
of his present intentions, and considers every magistrate as his
persecutor and enemy?

Laws, my lords, suppose reason; for who ever attempted to restrain
beasts but by force; and, therefore, those that propose the promotion
of publick happiness, which can be produced only by an exact
conformity to good laws, ought to endeavour to preserve what may
properly be called the publick reason; they ought to prevent a general
depravation of the faculties of those whose benefit is intended, and
whose obedience is required; they ought to take care that the laws may
be known, for how else can they be observed? and how can they be
known, or at least, how can they be remembered in the heats of
drunkenness?

That the laws are universally neglect