And, even if he could
obtain a readmission to his former business, his wants are now too
great and too pressing to be supplied by the slow methods of regular
industry; he must repair his losses by more efficacious expedients,
and must find some methods of acquisition, by which the importunity of
his creditors may be satisfied.
Industry is now, by long habits of idleness, become almost
impracticable; his attention having been long amused by pleasing
objects, and dissipated by jollity and merriment, is not readily
recalled to a task which is unpleasing, because it is enjoined; and
his limbs, enervated by hot and strong liquors, liquors of the most
pernicious kind, cannot support the fatigues necessary in the practice
of his trade; what was once wholesome exercise is now insupportable
fatigue; and he has not now time to habituate himself, by degrees, to
that application which he has intermitted, that labour which he has
disused, or those arts which he has forgotten.
In this state, my lords, he easily persuades himself that his
condition is desperate, that no legal methods will relieve him; and
that, therefore, he has nothing to hope but from the efforts of
despair.
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