ht to be opposed for their own sake, even
without the consideration of the immense sums which they apparently
demand.

I am, indeed, of opinion, that the success of the present schemes will
not be of any benefit to the nation, and believe, likewise, that there
is very little prospect of success. I am, at least, convinced, that no
advantage can countervail the mischiefs of this detestable bill;
which, therefore, I shall steadily oppose, though I have already dwelt
upon this subject perhaps too long; yet as I speak only from an
unprejudiced regard to the publick, I hope, if any new arguments shall
be attempted, that I shall be allowed the liberty of making a reply.

Lord BATHURST replied to the following purport:--My lords, I doubt not
but the noble lord has delivered, on this occasion, his real
sentiments, and that, in his opinion, the happiness of our country,
the regard which ought always to be paid to the promotion of virtue,
require that this bill should be rejected. I am far from suspecting,
that such an appearance of zeal can conceal any private views, or that
such pathetick exclamations can proceed but from a mind really
affected with honest anxiety.

This anxiety, my lords, I shall endeavour to dissipate before it has
been communicated to others; for I think it no less the duty of every
man who approves the publick measures, to vindicate them from
misrepresentation, than of him to whom they appear pernicious or
dangerous, to warn his fellow-subjects of that danger.

I, my lords, am one of those who are convinced that the bill now
before us, which has been censured as fundamentally wrong, is in
reality fundamentally right; that the end which is proposed by it is
just, and the means which are prescribed in it will accomplish the
purpose for which they were contrived.

The end of this bill, my lords, is to diminish the consumption of
distilled spirits, to restrain the populace of these kingdoms from a
liquor which, when used in excess, has a malignity to the last degree
dangerous, which at once inebriates and poisons, impairs the force of
the understanding, and destroys the vigour of the body; and to attain
this, I think it absolutely right to lay a tax upon these liquors.

Of the vice of drunkenness, my lords, no man has a stronger abhorrence
than myself; of the pernicious consequences of these liquors, which
are now chiefly used by the common people, no man is more fully
convinced, and therefore, none can m