Having thus obviated the only answer that has hitherto been made to the strong arguments which have been offered against the bill, I must declare, that I have heard nothing else that deserves an answer, or that can possibly make any impression in favour of the bill; a bill, my lords, teeming with sedition and idleness, diseases and robberies; a bill that will enfeeble the body, corrupt the mind, and turn the cities of this populous kingdom into prisons for villains, or hospitals for cripples; and which I think it, therefore, our duty to reject.

Lord LONSDALE next spoke to the effect following:—­My lords, the bill, on which we are now finally to determine, is of such a tendency, that it cannot be made a law, without an open and avowed disregard of all the rules which it has been hitherto thought the general interest of human nature to preserve inviolable.  It is opposite at once to the precepts of the wise, and the practice of the good, to the original principles of virtue and the established maxims of policy.

I shall, however, only consider it with relation to policy, because the other considerations will naturally coincide; for policy is only the connexion of prudence with goodness, and directs only what virtue each particular occurrence requires to be immediately practised.

The first principle of policy, my lords, teaches us, that the power and greatness of a state arises from the number of its people; uninhabited dominions are an empty show, and serve only to encumber the nation to which they belong; they are a kind of pompous ornaments, which must be thrown away in time of danger, and equally unfit for resistance and retreat.

In the present war, my lords, if the number of our people were equal to that of the two nations against which we are engaged, the narrowness of our dominions would give us a resistless superiority; as we have fewer posts to defend, we might send more forces to attack our enemies, who must be weak in every part, because they must be dispersed to a very great extent.  The torrent of war, as a flood of water, is only violent while it is confined, but loses its force as it is more diffused.

In consequence of this maxim, my lords, it is proposed, that because we are at war against two mighty powers, we shall endeavour to destroy by spirits at home, those who cannot fall by the sword of the enemy, and that we endeavour to hinder the production of another generation; for it is well known, my lords, and has in this debate been universally allowed, that the present practice of drinking spirits will not only destroy the present race, but debilitate the next.

This surely, my lords, is a time at which we ought very studiously to watch over the preservation of those lives which we are not compelled to expose, and endeavour to retrieve the losses of war by encouraging industry, temperance, and sobriety.