That this is, indeed, possible, I do not intend to deny; but the bare possibility of an event so desirable, is the utmost that can be admitted; for it can scarcely be expected, that any man should be able to break through all the obstacles that will obstruct his return to honesty and wisdom; his companions will endeavour to continue the infatuating amusements which have so long deluded him; his appetite will assist their solicitations; the desire of present ease by which all mankind are sometimes led aside from virtue, will operate with unusual strength; since, to retrieve his misconduct, he must not only deny himself the pleasure which he has so long indulged, but must bear the full view of his distress from which he will naturally turn aside his eyes.  The general difficulty of reformation will incline him to seek for ease by any other means, and to delay that amendment which he knows to be necessary, from hour to hour, and from day to day, till his resolutions are too much weakened to prove of any effect, and his habits confirmed beyond opposition.

At length, necessity, immediate necessity, presses upon him; his family is made clamorous by want, and his calls of nature and of luxury are equally importunate; he has now lost his credit in the world, and none will employ him, because none will trust him, or employment cannot immediately be, perhaps, obtained; because his place has for a long time been supplied by others.  And, even if he could obtain a readmission to his former business, his wants are now too great and too pressing to be supplied by the slow methods of regular industry; he must repair his losses by more efficacious expedients, and must find some methods of acquisition, by which the importunity of his creditors may be satisfied.

Industry is now, by long habits of idleness, become almost impracticable; his attention having been long amused by pleasing objects, and dissipated by jollity and merriment, is not readily recalled to a task which is unpleasing, because it is enjoined; and his limbs, enervated by hot and strong liquors, liquors of the most pernicious kind, cannot support the fatigues necessary in the practice of his trade; what was once wholesome exercise is now insupportable fatigue; and he has not now time to habituate himself, by degrees, to that application which he has intermitted, that labour which he has disused, or those arts which he has forgotten.

In this state, my lords, he easily persuades himself that his condition is desperate, that no legal methods will relieve him; and that, therefore, he has nothing to hope but from the efforts of despair.  These thoughts are quickly confirmed by his companions, whom the same misconduct has reduced to the same distress, and who have already tried the pleasures of being supported by the labour of others.  They do not fail to explain to him the possibility of sudden affluence, and, at worst, to celebrate the satisfaction of short-lived