odious and endless, or to punish offences
which every day multiplied, and of which the whole body of the common
people, a body very formidable when united, was universally engaged.

The practice, therefore, of vending and of drinking distilled spirits,
has prevailed for some time without opposition; nor can any man enter
a tavern or an alehouse, in which they will be denied him, or walk
along the streets without being incited to drink them at every corner;
they have been sold for several years, with no less openness and
security than any other commodity; and whoever walks in this great
city, will find his way very frequently obstructed by those who are
selling these pernicious liquors to the greedy populace, or by those
who have drank them till they are unable to move.

But the strongest proof of the inefficacy of the late law, and
consequently of the necessity of another, which may not be so easily
eluded or so violently resisted, is given by the papers which lie upon
the table. From these it appears that the quantity of spirits
distilled has increased from year to year to the present time; and,
therefore, that drunkenness is become more prevalent, and the reasons
for repressing it more urgent than ever before.

Let us, therefore, calmly consider, my lords, what can in this
exigence be done; that the people should be allowed to poison
themselves and their posterity without restraint, is certainly not the
intent of any good man; and therefore we are now to consider how it
may be prevented. That the people are infected with the vice of
drunkenness, that they debauch themselves chiefly with spirituous
liquors, and that those liquors are in a high degree pernicious, is
confessed both by those who oppose the bill, and those who defend it;
but with this advantage on the part of those that defend it, that they
only propose a probable method of reforming the abuses which they
deplore. I know that the warm resentment which some lords have on
former occasions expressed against the disorders which distilled
liquors are supposed to produce, may naturally incline them to wish
that they were totally prohibited, and that this _liquid fire_, as it
has been termed, were to be extinguished for ever.

Whether such wishes are not more ardent than rational; whether their
zeal against the abuse of things, indifferent in themselves, has not,
as has often happened in other cases, hurried them into an indiscreet
censure of the lawful use,