etailers; the traders in poison
and in perjury should have been both pursued with incessant vigour,
the sword of justice should have been drawn against them, nor should
it have been laid aside, till either species of wickedness had been
exterminated.

In the execution of this, as of other penal laws, my lords, it will be
always possible for the judge to be misled by false testimonies; and,
therefore, the argument which false informations furnish may be used
against every other law, where information is encouraged. Yet, my
lords, it has been long the practice of this nation to incite
criminals to detect each other; and when any enormous crime is
committed, to proclaim at once pardon and rewards to him that shall
discover his accomplices. This, my lords, is an apparent temptation to
perjury; and yet no inconvenieucies have arisen from it, that can
reasonably induce us to lay it aside.

Perjury may in the execution of this law be detected by the same means
as on other occasions; and whenever it is detected, ought to be
rigorously punished; and I doubt not but in a short time the
_difficulties_ and _inconveniencies_ which are asserted in the
preamble of this bill to have _attended the putting the late act in
execution_, would speedily have vanished; the number of delinquents
would have been every day lessened, and the virtue and industry of the
nation would have been restored.

It is not, indeed, asserted, that the execution of the late act was
impossible, but that it was attended with difficulties; and when, my
lords, was any design of great importance effected without
difficulties? It is difficult, without doubt, to restrain a nation
from vice; and to reform a nation already corrupted, is still more
difficult. But as both, however difficult, are necessary, it is the
duty of government to endeavour them, till it shall appear that no
endeavours can succeed.

For my part, my lords, I am not easily persuaded to believe that
remissness will succeed, where assiduity has failed; and, therefore,
if it be true, as is supposed in the preamble, that the former act was
ineffectual by any defects in itself, I cannot conceive that this will
operate with greater force. I cannot imagine that appetites will be
weakened by lessening the danger of gratifying them, or that men who
will break down the fences of the law to possess themselves of what
long habits have, in their opinion, made necessary to them, will
neglect it, merely becau