g it.

It has been mentioned by a very celebrated writer, as a rational
practice in the exercise of government, to tax such commodities as
were abused to the increase of vice, that vice may be discouraged by
being made more expensive; and therefore the community in time be set
free from it: but the tax which is now proposed, my lords, is of a
different kind; it is a tax laid upon vice, indeed, but it is to arise
from the licenses granted to wickedness, and its consequences must be
the increase of debauchery, not the restraint. It is a tax which will
be readily paid, because it will be little felt; and because it will
be little felt, it is hoped that multitudes will subject themselves to
it.

The act which is now to be repealed, was, indeed, of a very different
nature, though perhaps not free from very just objections. It had this
advantage at least, that so far as it was put in execution, it
obstructed drunkenness; nor has the examination of the officers of
excise discovered any imperfection in the law; for it has only failed,
because it was timorously or negligently executed. Why it was not
vigorously and diligently enforced, I have never yet been able to
discover. If the magistrates were threatened by the populace, the
necessity of such laws was more plainly proved; for what justifies the
severity of coercion but the prevalence of the crime? and what may not
be feared from crowds intoxicated with spirits, whose insolence and
fury is already such, that they dare to threaten the government by
which they are debarred from the use of them?

This, my lords, is a reflection that ought not to be passed slightly
over. The nature of our constitution, happy as it is, must be
acknowledged to produce this inconvenience, that it inclines the
common people to turbulence and sedition; the nature of spirituous
liquors is such, that they inflame these dispositions, already too
much predominant; and yet the turbulence of the people is made a
reason for licensing drunkenness, and allowing, without limitation,
the sale of those spirits by which that turbulence must be certainly
increased.

It may be, perhaps, urged, (for indeed I know not what else can be
decently alleged,) that there is a necessity of raising money, that no
other method can be invented, and that, therefore, this ought not to
be opposed.

I know, my lords, that ministers generally consider, as the test of
each man's loyalty, the readiness with which he concurs wit