ntinued, and the
consumption was every year greater than the former.

This, my lords, is the present state of the nation; a state
sufficiently deplorable, and which all the laws of humanity and
justice command us to alter. This is the universal declaration. We all
agree, that the people grow every day more corrupt, and that this
corruption ought to be stopped; but by what means is yet undecided.

Violent methods and extremity of rigour have been already tried, and
totally defeated; it is, therefore, proposed to try more easy and
gentle regulations, that shall produce, by slow degrees, the
reformation which cannot be effected by open force; these new
regulations appear to many lords not sufficiently coercive, and are
imagined still less likely to reform a vice so inveterate, and so
firmly established.

These opinions I cannot flatter myself with the hope of reconciling;
but must yet observe, that the consumption of these liquors, as of all
other commodities, can only be lessened by proper duties, and that
every additional imposition has a tendency to lessen them; and since,
so far as it extends, it can produce no ill effects, deserves the
approbation of those who sincerely desire to suppress this odious vice
that has so much prevailed, and been so widely diffused.

It is, indeed, possible, that the duties now proposed may be found not
sufficient; but for this defect there is an easy remedy. The duty, if
it be found, by the experience of a single year, to be too small, may,
in the next, be easily augmented, and swelled, by annual increases,
even to the height which is now proposed, if no remedy more easy can
be found.

It may be objected, that this fund will be mortgaged for the payment
of the sums employed in the service of the war; and that, therefore,
the state of the duty cannot afterwards be altered without injustice
to the publick creditors, and a manifest violation of the faith of the
senate; but, my lords, though in the hurry of providing for a pressing
and important war, the commons could not find any other method so easy
of raising money, it cannot be doubted but that when they consider the
state of the nation at leisure, they will easily redeem this tax, if
it shall appear inconvenient, and substitute some other, less
injurious to the happiness of the publick.

It was not impossible for them to have done this in the beginning of
this session; nor can it be supposed, that men so long versed in
publick af