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 sidered in a committee, is only to desire that it may gain one step without opposition; that it may proceed through the forms of the House by stealth; and that the consideration of it may be delayed till the exigencies of the government shall be so great as not to allow time for raising the supplies by any other method.

By this artifice, gross as it is, the patrons of this wonderful bill hope to obstruct a plain and open detection of its tendency. They hope, my lords, that the bill shall operate in the same manner with the liquor which it is intended to bring into more general use; and that, as those who drink spirits are drunk before they are well aware that they are drinking, the effects of this law shall be perceived before we know that we have made it. Their intent is, to give us a dram of policy which is to be swallowed before it is tasted, and which, when once it is swallowed, will turn our heads.

To pretend, my lords, that the design of this bill is to prevent or diminish the use of spirits is to trample on common sense and to violate the rules of decency as well as of reason. For when did any man hear that a commodity was prohibited by licensing its sale, or that to offer and refuse is the same action?

It is indeed pleaded that it will be made dearer by the tax which is proposed, and that the increase of the price will diminish the number of purchasers; but it is at the same time expected that this tax shall supply the expense