It has, however, some effect; it may be imagined, that no man can be
trusted where he is not known, and that some men are known too well to
be trusted; and, therefore, many must be occasionally hindered from
drinking spirits, while the law remains in its present state; who,
when houses are set open by license, will never want an opportunity of
complying with their appetites, but may at any time enter confidently,
and call for poison, and mingle with numerous assemblies met only to
provoke each other to intemperance by a kind of brutal emulation and
obstreperous merriment.
This bill, therefore, my lords, is, as it has been termed, only an
experiment; an experiment, my lords, of a very daring kind, which none
would hazard but empirical politicians. It is an experiment to
discover how far the vices of the populace may be made useful to the
government, what taxes may be raised upon poison, and how much the
court may be enriched by the destruction of the subjects.
The tendency of this bill is so evident, that those who appeared as
its advocates have rather endeavoured to defeat their opponents by
charging their proposals with absurdity, than by extenuating the ill
consequence of their own scheme.
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