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 consumption of intoxicating liquors, already of enormous amount, as compared with the population, and thereby to spread a moral pestilence as widely as possible over the whole community." }

The foundations of society in the colony of New South Wales being thus laid in so preposterous a manner, it will not appear unaccountable, that the consumption of ardent spirits, and the practice of all those lesser vices, and the prevalence of all those greater crimes and misdemeanours, that must necessarily ensue from excess in the use of such stimulants in a convict colony, should have been steadily advancing during the successive administrations of Sir Thomas Brisbane, Sir Ralph Darling, and Sir Richard Bourke; insomuch that, if I may be