es as, from
the experience of late years, we have reason to believe will find many
imitators; and therefore will promote at once the consumption of
spirits, and the corruption of the people.

There is always to be found in wickedness a detestable ambition of
gaining proselytes: every man who has suffered himself to be
corrupted, is desirous to hide himself from infamy in crowds as
vitious as himself, or desires companions in wickedness from the same
natural inclination to society, which prompts almost every man to
avoid singularity on other occasions.

Whatever be the reason, it may be every day observed, that the great
pleasure of the vitious is to vitiate others; nor is it possible to
squander an hour in the assemblies of debauchees of any rank, without
observing with what importunity innocence is attacked, and how many
arts of sophistry and ridicule are used to weaken the influence of
virtue, and suppress the struggles of conscience.

The fatal art by which virtue is most commonly overborne is the
frequent repetition of temptations, which, though often rejected, will
at some unhappy moment generally prevail, and, therefore, ought to be
removed; but which this bill is intended to place always in sight.

To what purpose will it be, my lords, to deprive nine hardened
profligates of a tenth part of the liquor which they now drink, which
is the utmost that this duty will effect? If they have an opportunity
of corrupting one by their solicitation and example, the difference
between nine and ten acts of debauchery is of very small importance to
mankind, or even to the persons who are thus restrained, since their
forbearance of the utmost excesses is only the effect of their
poverty, not of their virtue.

How far is such restraint from being equivalent to the corruption of
one mind, yet pure and undebauched! to the seduction of one heart from
virtue, and a new addition to the interest and prevalence of
wickedness! If it be necessary that the supplies should be raised for
the government by the use of this pernicious liquor, it is desirable
that it should be confined to few, and that it should rather be
swallowed in large quantities by hopeless drunkards, than offered
everywhere to the taste of innocence and youth, in licensed houses of
wickedness.

The consumption will, for a time, be the same in both cases, but with
this important difference, that wickedness would only be continued,
not promoted; and as the poison wo