dence that under
the wide construction which has been given to the law against conspiracy,
persons who were to combine to force such a change by abstaining from all
exciseable articles might not be indicted for it as a conspiracy. It
may, for aught that I know, be even indictable to unite and desist from
using tea, tobacco and snuff to coerce the government into reform by a
reduction of the revenue raised from those articles; but you are not
sitting there to try an indictment for a conspiracy; and, therefore,
though this passage may not be pleasing, I read it, without hesitation,
because it leads to others, which I think demand your consideration and
attention. "We must deny ourselves, he proceeds to say, those little
luxuries in which we have long indulged. Why not? Who gains, and who
loses by this denial? We do not rob ourselves, we only check our
passions; and, in doing this, we strengthen both our bodies and our
purses. I would appeal to those, who, for the last year, have had the
courage and the virtue to abstain from the use of malt and spirituous
liquors, foreign tea and coffee, tobacco, snuff, &c., whether they do not
feel satisfaction from the change of habit; and whether they are not
better in health and pocket, without the use of these things." This,
gentlemen, is a sermon on temperance, and I wish it were generally
followed. I apprehend that this is not only innocent, but highly
meritorious. For my own part I shall maintain the opinion (though ten
thousand Mandevilles should write, and imagine they have proved private
vices public benefits) that it is infinitely more important and
beneficial that the mass of the people should be temperate and healthy,
though poor, than that an immense revenue should be collected from their
addiction to sensual pleasures and vicious luxuries. I say vicious,
because all moral writers concur in calling those sensualities vices, as
free indulgence in them leads to a state of total dissipation of mind
under which scarcely any profligacy seems a crime. The writer continues:
"There are a variety of other things which are heavily excised, the use
of which might be prudently dropped; and which are not essential either
to the health or comfort of mankind. Speaking for myself, I can say, I
do not recommend more than I practise; and that my food for the last year
has consisted chiefly of milk and bread and raw native fruits. I have
been fatter and stronger than in any former