But, my lords, rigour has been already tried, and found to be vain; it has been found equally fruitless to forbid the people to use spirits, as to forbid a man in a dropsy to drink.  The force of appetite long indulged, and by indulgence made superiour to the control of reason, is not to be overcome at once; it cannot be subdued by a single effort, but may be weakened; new habits of a more innocent kind may in time be superinduced, and one desire may counterbalance another.

We must endeavour, my lords, by just degrees, to withdraw their affections from this pernicious enjoyment, by making the attainment of it every year somewhat more difficult:  but we must not quicken their wishes, and exasperate their resentment, by depriving them at once of their whole felicity.  By this method, my lords, I doubt not but we shall obtain what we have hitherto endeavoured with so little success; and I believe that though, in open defiance of a severe law, spirits are now sold in every street of this city, a gentle restraint will, in a short time, divert the minds of the people to other entertainments, and the vice of drinking spirits will be forgotten among us.

Lord HERVEY then rose up again, and spoke to the effect following:—­My lords, though I have always considered this bill as at once wicked and absurd, I imagined till now that the projectors of it would have been able to have argued, at least, speciously, though not solidly, in defence of it; nor did I imagine it to have been wholly indefensible, till I discovered how little the extensive knowledge, the long experience, and the penetrating foresight of the noble lord who spoke last, enabled him to produce in vindication of it.

His lordship’s argument is reducible to this single assertion, that the drinking distilled liquors cannot be prevented; and from thence he drew this inference, that since it is a point of wisdom to turn misfortunes to advantage, we ought to contrive methods by which the debauchery of the people may enrich the government.

Though we should suppose the assertion true in any sense below that of absolute physical impossibility, the inference is by no means just; since it is the duty of governours to struggle against vice, and promote virtue with incessant assiduity, notwithstanding the difficulties that may for a time hinder the wisest and most rigorous measures from success.  That governour who desists from his endeavours of reformation, because they have been once baffled, in reality abandons his station and deserts his charge, nor deserves any other character than that of laziness, negligence, or cowardice.

The preservation of virtue where it subsists, and the recovery of it where it is lost, are the only valuable purposes of government.  Laws which do not promote these ends are useless, and those that obviate them are pernicious.  The government that takes advantage of wicked inclinations, by accident predominant in the people, and, for any temporary convenience, instead of leading them back to virtue, plunges them deeper into vice, is no longer a sacred institution, because it is no longer a benefit to society.  It is from that time a system of wickedness, in which bad ends are promoted by bad means, and one crime operates in subordination to another.