rrefragability; let us consider on what suppositions it is founded,
and we shall soon find how easily it will be dissipated.

It is supposed, by this argument, that every drinker of these liquors
spends as much as he can possibly procure; and that therefore the
least additional price must place part of his pleasure beyond his
reach. This, my lords, cannot be generally true; it is perhaps
generally, if not universally false. It cannot be doubted, but that
many of those who corrupt their minds and bodies with these pernicious
draughts, are above the necessity of constraining their appetites to
escape so small an expense as that which is now to be imposed upon
them; and even of those whose poverty can sink no lower, who are in
reality exhausted by every day's debauch, it is at least as likely
that they will insist upon more pay for their work, or that they will
steal with more rapacity, as that they will suffer themselves to be
debarred from the pleasures of drunkenness.

It is not certain that this duty will make these liquors dearer to
those who drink them; since the distiller will more willingly deduct
from his present profit the small tax that is now proposed, than
suffer the trade to sink; and even if that tax should be, as is usual,
levied upon the retailer, it has been already observed, that, in the
quantities necessary to drunkenness, it will not be perceptible.

But, my lords, though this argument appears thus weak upon the first
and slightest consideration, the chief fallacy is still behind. Those,
who have already initiated themselves in debauchery, deserve not the
chief consideration of this assembly; they are, for the greatest part,
hopeless and abandoned, and can only be withheld by force from
complying with those desires to which they are habitually enslaved.
They may, indeed, be sometimes punished, and at other times
restrained, but cannot often be reformed.

Those, my lords, who are yet uncorrupted, ought first to engage our
care; virtue is easily preserved, but difficultly regained. But for
those what regard has hitherto been shown? What effect can be expected
from this bill, but that of exposing them to temptations, by placing
unlawful pleasures in their view? pleasures, which, however unworthy
of human nature, are seldom forsaken after they have once been tasted.

In the consideration of the present question, it is to be remembered,
that multitudes are already corrupted, and the contagion grows more