It is, therefore, my lords, of the utmost importance, that all practices should be suppressed by which the lower orders of the people are enfeebled and enervated; for if they should be no longer able to bear fatigues or hardships, if any epidemical weakness of body should be diffused among them, our power must be at an end, our mines would be an useless treasure, and would no longer afford us either the weapons of war, or the ornaments of domestick elegance; we should no longer give law to mankind by our naval power, nor send out armies to fight for the liberty of distant nations; we should no longer supply the markets of the continent with our commodities, or share in all the advantages which nature has bestowed upon distant countries, for all these, my lords, are the effects of indigent industry, and mechanick labour.

All these blessings or conveniencies are procured by that strength of body, which nature has bestowed upon the natives of this country, who have hitherto been remarkably robust and hardy, able to support long fatigues, and to contend with the inclemency of rigorous climates, the violence of storms, and the turbulence of waves, and who have, therefore, extended their conquests with uncommon success, and been equally adapted to the toils of trade and of war, and have excelled those who endeavoured to rival them either in the praise of workmanship or of valour.

But, my lords, if the use of spirituous liquors be encouraged, their diligence, which can only be supported by health, will quickly languish; every day will diminish the numbers of the manufacturers, and, by consequence, augment the price of labour; those who continue to follow their employments, will be partly enervated by corruption, and partly made wanton by the plenty which the advancement of their wages will afford them, and partly by the knowledge that no degree of negligence will deprive them of that employment in which there will be none to succeed them.  All our commodities, therefore, will be wrought with less care and at a higher price, and therefore, will be rejected at foreign markets in favour of those which other nations will exhibit of more value, and yet at a lower rate.

No sooner, my lords, will this bill make drunkenness unexpensive and commodious, no sooner will shops be opened in every corner of the streets, in every petty village, and in every obscure cellar for the retail of these liquors, than the workrooms will be forsaken, when the artificer has, by the labour of a small part of the day, procured what will be sufficient to intoxicate him for the remaining hours; for he will hold it ridiculous to waste any part of his life in superfluous diligence, and will readily assign to merriment and frolicks that time which he now spends in useful occupations.

But such is the quality of these liquors, that he will not long be able to divide his life between labour and debauchery, he will soon find himself disabled by his excesses from the prosecution of his work, and those shops which were before abandoned for the sake of pleasure, will soon be made desolate by sickness; those who were before idle, will become diseased, and either perish by untimely deaths, or languish in misery and want, an useless burden to the publick.