But, my lords, the ministers themselves have sufficiently declared their opinion of the state of the national wealth, by the method which they have taken to raise those supplies of which they boast with how great facility they are raised.

When they found that new expenses required new taxes, it was necessary to examine what could be taxed, or upon which part of the nation any other burdens could be laid without immediate ruin.  They turned over the catalogue of all our manufactures, and found, that scarcely any of the conveniencies, or even the necessaries of life, were without an impost.  They examined all the classes of our traders, and readily discovered, that the greatest number of those who endeavoured to support themselves by honest industry, were struggling with poverty, and scarcely able to provide to-day what would be necessary to-morrow.  They saw our prisons crowded with debtors, and our papers filled with the names of bankrupts, of whom many may be supposed to have miscarried without idleness, extravagance, or folly.

They saw, therefore, my lords, that industry must sink under any addition to its load, a consideration which could afford no proof of the abundance of our wealth.  They saw that our commodities would be no longer manufactured, if their taxes were increased; and, therefore, it was necessary to raise money by some other method, since all those which have been hitherto practised were precluded.

This, my lords, was no easy task; but however difficult, it has been accomplished; and to those great politicians must posterity be indebted for a new scheme of supplying the expenses of a war.

In the time of the late ministry it had been observed, that drunkenness was become a vice almost universal among the common people; and that as the liquor which they generally drank was such that they could destroy their reason by a small quantity, and at a small expense, the consequence of general drunkenness was general idleness; since no man would work any longer than was necessary to lay him asleep for the remaining part of the day.  They remarked, likewise, that the liquor which they generally drank was to the last degree pernicious to health, and destructive of that corporeal vigour by which the business of life is to be carried on; and a law was therefore made, by which it was intended that this species of debauchery, so peculiarly fatal, should be prevented.

Against the end of this law no man has hitherto made the least objection; no one has dared to signalize himself as an open advocate for vice, or attempted to prove that drunkenness was not injurious to society, and contrary to the true ends of human being.  The encouragement of wickedness of this shameful kind, wickedness equally contemptible and hateful, was reserved for the present ministry, who are now about to supply those funds which they have exhausted by idle projects and romantick expeditions, at the expense of health and virtue; who have discovered a method of recruiting armies by the destruction of their fellow-subjects; and while they boast themselves the assertors of liberty, are endeavouring to enslave us by the introduction of those vices, which in all countries, and in every age, have made way for despotick power.