But such is the quality of these liquors, that he will not long be able to divide his life between labour and debauchery, he will soon find himself disabled by his excesses from the prosecution of his work, and those shops which were before abandoned for the sake of pleasure, will soon be made desolate by sickness; those who were before idle, will become diseased, and either perish by untimely deaths, or languish in misery and want, an useless burden to the publick.
Nor, my lords, will the nation only suffer by the deduction of such numbers from useful employments, but by the addition of great multitudes to those who must be supported by the charity of the publick. The manufacturer, who by the use of spirituous liquors weakens his limbs or destroys his health, at once, takes from the community to which he belongs, a member by which the common stock was increased, and by leaving a helpless family behind him, increases the burden which the common stock must necessarily support. And the trader or husbandman is obliged to pay more towards the maintenance of the poor, by the same accident which diminishes his trade or his harvest, which takes away part of the assistance which he received, and raises the price of the rest.
That these liquors, my lords, liquors of which the strength is heightened by distillation, have a natural tendency to inflame the blood, to consume the vital juices, destroy the force of the vessels, contract the nerves, and weaken the sinews, that they not only disorder the mind for a time, but by a frequent use precipitate old age, exasperate diseases, and multiply and increase all the infirmities to which the body of man is liable, is generally known to all whose regard to their own health, or study to preserve that of others, has at any time engaged them in such inquiries, and would have been more clearly explained to your lordships, had the learned physicians been suffered to have given their opinions on this subject, as was yesterday proposed.
Why that proposal was rejected, my lords; for what reason, in the discussion of so important a question, any kind of evidence was refused, posterity will find it difficult to explain, without imputing to your lordships such motives as, I hope, will never operate in this assembly. It will be, perhaps, thought that the danger was generally known, though not acknowledged; and that those who resolved to pass the bill, had no other care than to obstruct such information as might prove to mankind, that they were incited by other designs than that of promoting the publick good.
It is not, however, necessary that any very curious inquiries should be made for the discovery of that which, indeed, cannot be concealed, and which every man has an opportunity of remarking that passes through the streets.
So publick, so enormous, and so pernicious has been this dreadful method of debauchery, that it has excited and baffled the diligence of the magistrates, who have endeavoured to stop its progress or hinder its effects. They found their efforts ineffectual, and their diligence not only not useful to the publick, but dangerous to themselves. They quickly experienced, my lords, the folly of those laws which punish crimes instead of preventing them; they found that legal authority had little influence, when opposed to the madness of multitudes intoxicated with spirits, and that the voice of justice was but very little heard amidst the clamours of riot and drunkenness.
We live, my lords, in a nation where the effects of strong liquors have been for a long time too well known; we know that they produce, in almost every one, a high opinion of his own merit; that they blow the latent sparks of pride into flame, and, therefore, destroy all voluntary submission; they put an end to subordination, and raise every man to an equality with his master, or his governour. They repress all that awe by which men are restrained within the limits of their proper spheres, and incite every man to press upon him that stands before him, that stands in the place of which that sudden elevation of heart, which drunkenness bestows, makes him think himself more worthy.
Pride, my lords, is the parent, and intrepidity the fosterer of resentment; for this reason, men are almost always inclined, in their debauches, to quarrels and to bloodshed; they think more highly of their own merit, and, therefore, more readily conclude themselves injured; they are wholly divested of fear, insensible of present danger, superiour to all authority, and, therefore, thoughtless of future punishment; and what then can hinder them from expressing their resentment with the most offensive freedom, or pursuing their revenge with the most daring violence.
Thus, my lords, are forgotten disputes often revived, and after having been long reconciled, are at last terminated by blows; thus are lives destroyed upon the most trifling occasions, upon provocations often imaginary, upon chimerical points of honour, where he who gave the offence, perhaps without design, supports it only because he has given it; and he who resents it, pursues his resentment only because he will not acknowledge his mistake.
Thus are lives lost, my lords, at a time when those who set them to hazard, are without consciousness of their value, without sense of the laws which they violate, and without regard to any motives but the immediate influence of rage and malice.