mpossible for the traders to sell it so
cheap on the coast of Africa as it might be sold by the Dutch, who are
the great rivals of Great Britain in this branch of commerce. To these
arguments, all of which were plausible, and some of them unanswerable,
it was replied, that malt-spirits might be considered as a fatal and
bewitching poison which had actually debauched the minds, and enervated
the bodies, of the common people to a very deplorable degree; that,
without entering further into a comparison between the use and abuse
of the two liquors, beer and geneva, it would be sufficient to observe,
that the use of beer and ale had produced none of those dreadful
effects which were the consequences of drinking geneva; and since the
prohibition of the distilling of malt-spirits had taken place, the
common people were become apparently more sober, decent, healthy, and
industrious: a circumstance sufficient to induce the legislature
not only to intermit, but even totally to abolish the practice of
distillation, which has ever been productive of such intoxication, riot,
disorder, and distemper, among the lower class of the people, as might
be deemed the greatest evils incident to a well-regulated commonwealth.
Their assertion with respect to the coarse kind of barley, called big,
was contradicted as a deviation from truth, inasmuch as it was used in
making malt, as well as in making bread: and with respect to damaged
corn, those who understood the nature of grain affirmed, that it was
spoiled to such a degree as to be altogether unfit for either of these
purposes, the distillers would not purchase it at such a price as would
indemnify the farmer for the charge of threshing and carriage; for the
distillers are very sensible, that their great profit is derived
from their distilling the malt made from the best barley, so that the
increase of the produce far exceeded in proportion the advance of
the price. It was not, however, an easy matter to prove that the
distillation of malt-spirits was not necessary to an advantageous
prosecution of the commerce on the coast of Guinea, as well as among the
Indians in some parts of North America. Certain it is, that, in these
branches of traffic, the want of geneva may be supplied by spirits
distilled from sugars and molasses. After all, it must be owned, that
the good and salutary effects of the prohibition were visible in every
part of the kingdom, and no evil consequence ensued, except a dimi