The prohibition of those commodities which are instrumental to vice, is not only dictated by policy but nature; nor does it, indeed, require much sagacity, when the evil is known, to find the proper remedy; for even the Indians, who have not yet reduced the art of government to a science, nor learned to make long harangues upon the different interests of foreign powers, the necessity of raising supplies or the importance and extent of manufactures, have yet been able to discover, that distilled spirits are pernicious to society, and that the use of them can only be hindered by prohibiting the sale.

For this reason, my lords, they have petitioned, that none of this delicious poison should be imported from.  Britain; they have desired us to confine this fountain of wickedness and misery to stream in our own country, without pouring upon them those inundations of debauchery, by which we are ourselves overflowed.

When we may be sent with justice to learn from the rude and ignorant Indians the first elements of civil wisdom, we have surely not much right to boast of our foresight and knowledge; we must surely confess, that we have hitherto valued ourselves upon our arts with very little reason, since we have not learned how to preserve either wealth or virtue, either peace or commerce.

The maxims of our politicians, my lords, differ widely from those of the Indian savages, as they are the effects of longer consideration, and reasonings formed upon more extensive views.  What Indian, my lords, would have contrived to hinder his countrymen from drunkenness, by placing that liquor in their houses which tempted them to excess; or would have discovered, that prohibition only were the cause of boundless excesses; that to subdue the appetite nothing was necessary but to solicit it; and that what was always offered would never be received?  The Indians, in the simplicity of men unacquainted with European and British refinements, imagined, that to put an end to the use of any thing, it was only necessary to take it away; and conceived, that they could not promote sobriety more effectually, than by allowing the people nothing with which they could be drunk.

But if our politicians should send missionaries to teach them the art of government, they would quickly be shown, that if they would accomplish their design, they must appoint every tenth man among them to distribute spirits to the nine, and to drink them himself in what quantity they shall desire, and that then the peace of their country will be no longer disturbed by the quarrels of debauchery.

It is, indeed, not without amazement, that I hear this bill seriously defended as a scheme for suppressing drunkenness, and find some lords, who admit that fifty thousand houses will be opened for the publick sale of spirits, assert that a less quantity of spirits will be sold.

The foundation of this opinion is in itself very uncertain; for nothing more is urged, but that all who sell under the sanction of a license, will be ready to inform against those by whom no license has been purchased; and that, therefore, fifty thousand licensed retailers may hurt a greater number who now sell spirits in opposition to the law.