Even this expedient, my lords, must in a short time fail them; the
products of vice as well as of commerce must in time be exhausted; and
what will then remain? The honest and industrious must feel the weight
of some new imposition, which the sagacity of experienced oppression
may find means to lay upon them; they will then first find the benefit
of this new law, since they may, by the use of those liquors which are
indulged them, put a speedy end to that life which they made unable to
support.
The means by which the expenses of our present designs are to be
supported, such means, my lords, as were never yet practised by any
state, however exhausted, or however endangered, means which a wise
nation would scarcely use to repel an invader from the capital, or to
raise works to keep off a general inundation, raise yet stronger
motions of indignation, when it is considered for what designs these
expenses are required.
We are now, my lords, raising armies, and hiring auxiliaries, for an
expedition of which no necessity can be discovered, and from which
neither honour nor advantage can be expected; we are about to force
from the people the last remains of their property, and to harass with
exactions those who are already languishing with poverty; not for the
preservation of our liberty, or the defence of our country, but for
the support of the Pragmatick sanction, for the execution of a very
unjust scheme formed by the late king, to which he purchased at
different times, on different emergencies, the concurrence of other
powers; but to which he failed to put the last seal of confirmation,
perhaps in hopes of a male heir, and left the design, which he had so
long and so industriously laboured, to be at last completed by the
kindness of his allies; having, by an unsuccessful war against the
Turks, exhausted his treasure, and weakened his troops.
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