The amazing increase of the consumption of spirits for the last ten years, is a proof too evident of the prevalence of this destructive species of drunkenness; and I shall, therefore, without troubling your lordships with earlier accounts, only mention in round numbers, the vast quantities for which the duty has been paid for a few years in that period.  In the year 1733, the number of gallons distilled was three millions and nine hundred thousand, which in 1735 was increased to five millions and three hundred thousand; soon afterwards the law was made which we are now persuaded to repeal, by the execution of which, however feeble and irresolute, the number was reduced in the first year afterwards to three millions, and might, perhaps, by steady perseverance have been every year lessened; but in a short time the people prevailed in the contest with the legislators, they intimidated information, and wearied prosecution; and were at length allowed to indulge themselves in the enjoyment of their favourite vice without any farther molestation.

The effects of this indulgence, my lords, have been very remarkable; nor can it be denied, that the government betrayed great weakness in suffering the laws to be overruled by drunkenness, and the meanest and most profligate of the people to set the statutes at defiance; for the vice which had been so feebly opposed spread wider and wider, and every year added regularly another million of gallons to the quantity of spirits distilled, till in the last year they rose to seven millions and one hundred thousand gallons.

Such, my lords, is at present the state of the nation; twelve millions of gallons of these poisonous liquors are every year swallowed by the inhabitants of this kingdom; and this quantity, enormous as it is, will probably every year increase, till the number of the people shall be sensibly diminished by the diseases which it must produce; nor shall we find any decay of this pernicious trade, but by the general mortality that will overspread the kingdom.

At least, if this vice should be suppressed, it must be suppressed by some supernatural interposition of providence; for nothing is more absurd, than to imagine, that the bill now before us can produce any such effect.  For what, my lords, encourages any man to a crime but security from punishment, or what tempts him to the commission of it but frequent opportunity?  We are, however, about to reform the practice of drinking spirits, by making spirits more easy to be procured; we are about to hinder them from being bought, by exempting the vender from all fear of punishment.