These facts, my lords, are so plain, that the warmest advocates for the bill have tacitly acknowledged them, by proposing that, if it be found ineffectual, it shall be amended in the next session.  What effect this proposal may have upon others, I know not; but for my part, I shall never think it allowable to sport with the prosperity of the publick, or to try experiments by which, if they fail, the lives of thousands must be destroyed.

Such a scheme, my lords, very ill becomes those to whom their ancestors have transmitted the illustrious character of guardians of the people; for surely such cruelty was never practised by the utmost wantonness of tyranny, or the most savage rage of invasion.  No man ever before conceived the design of scattering poison for a certain period of time among the people, only to try what havock it would make.

What will be the effects of unrestrained and licensed debauchery may be known, without the guilt of so dreadful an experiment, only by observing the present conduct of the people, even while they are hindered from the full enjoyment of their pleasures, by the terrours of a penal law.  Whoever shall be so far touched with the interest of the publick, as to extend his inquiries to the lowest classes of the people, will find some diseased, and others vitiated; he will find some imprisoned by their creditors, and others starving their children; and if he traces all these calamities and crimes to their original cause, will find them all to proceed from the love of distilled liquors.

I know, my lords, that in answer to all these expostulations, and a thousand more, it will be urged by the ministers and their friends, that there is no other method to be found of raising the supplies, and that the demands of the government must be satisfied at whatever rate, and by whatever means.

Though I am very far from approving this assertion, I do not wonder at its prevalence among those who are enriched by every tax, and whose only claim to the preferments which they enjoy arises from their readiness to concur in every scheme for increasing the burdens of the publick; and, therefore, shall never expect their approbation of any proposal, by which a new tax may be retarded.  Yet I cannot but declare that, in my opinion, we ought to suspend our proceedings, that the commons may discover what danger their negligence, precipitation, or blind compliance, has brought upon the nation; and that the people may, by so signal a proof of our disapprobation, be alarmed against any attempt of the same kind under any future administration.

This, my lords, will be considered, not only by posterity, but by all the wise and honest men of the present time, as a proof of our regard for virtue, and our attention to the publick welfare.  This conduct will be secretly approved, even by those who may think themselves obliged to oppose it in publick; and, as it will be moderate and decent, may probably preserve the nation without irritating the other house.