second essay of means, which have been found, by the essay of many years, unsuccessful. It has been granted on all sides in this debate, nor was it ever denied on any other occasion, that the consumption of any commodity is most easily hindered by raising its price, and its price is to be raised by the imposition of a duty. This, my Lords, which is, I suppose, the opinion of every man, of whatever degree of experience or understanding, appears likewise to have been thought of by the authors of the present law; and therefore they imagined that they had effectually provided against the increase of drunkenness, by laying upon that liquor which should be retailed in small quantities, a duty which none of the inferior classes of drunkards would be able to pay. destroy, or very much impair, the trade of distilling, is certainly supposed by those who defend it, for they proposed it only for that end: and what better method can they propose, when they are called to deliberate upon a bill for the prevention of the excessive use of distilled liquors? The noble Lord has been pleased kindly to inform us that the trade of distilling is very extensive; that it employs great numbers; and that they have arrived at an exquisite skill, and therefore-note well the consequence-the trade of distilling is not to be discouraged. Once more, my Lords, allow me to wonder at the different conceptions of different understandings. It appears to me that since the spirits which the distillers produce are allowed to enfeeble the limbs and vitiate the blood, to pervert the heart and obscure the intellects, that the Thus, my Lords, they conceived that they had reformed the common people without infringing the pleasures of others; and applauded the hap-number of distillers should be no argument in py contrivance by which spirits were to be made dear only to the poor, while every man who could afford to purchase two gallons was at liberty to riot at his ease, and, over a full flowing bumper, look down with contempt upon his former companions, now ruthlessly condemned to disconsolate sobriety. But, my Lords, this intention was frustrated, and the project, ingenious as it was, fell to the ground; for, though they had laid a tax, they unhappily forgot this tax would make no addition to the price unless it was paid, and that it would not be paid unless some were empowered to collect it. their favor; for I never heard that a law against theft was repealed or delayed because thieves were numerous. It appears to me, my Lords, that if so formidable a body are confederated against the virtue or the lives of their fellow-citizens, it is time to put an end to the havoc, and to interpose, while it is yet in our power to stop the destruction. So little, my lords, am I affected with the merit of the wonderful skill which the distillers are said to have attained, that it is, in my opin ion, no faculty of great use to mankind to pre. pare palatable poison; nor shall I ever contribute my interest for the reprieve of a murderer, because he has, by long practice, obtained great dexterity in his trade. If their liquors are so delicious that the people are tempted to their own destruction, let us at length, my Lords, secure them from these fatal draughts, by bursting the vials that contain them. Let us crush at once these artists in slaughter, who have reconciled their countrymen to sickness and to ruin, and spread over the pitfalls of debauchery such baits as can not be resisted. Here, my Lords, was the difficulty: those who made the law were inclined to lay a tax from which themselves should be exempt, and therefore would not charge the liquor as it issued from the still; and when once it was dispersed in the hands of petty dealers, it was no longer to be found without the assistance of informers, and informers could not carry on the business of prosecution without the consent of the people. It is not necessary to dwell any longer upon the law, the repeal of which is proposed, since it appears already that it failed only from a par. The noble Lord has, indeed, admitted that this tiality not easily defended, and from the omis-bill may not be found sufficiently coercive, but sion of what we now propose—the collecting gives us hopes that it may be improved and enthe duty from the still-head. forced another year, and persuades us to endeav If this method be followed, there will be no or a reformation of drunkenness by degrees, and, longer any need of informations or of any rig-above all, to beware at present of hurting the orous or new measures; the same officers that manufacture. collect a smaller duty may levy a greater; nor I am very far, my Lords, from thinking that can they be easily deceived with regard to the there are, this year, any peculiar reasons for tolquantities that are made; the deceits, at least, erating murder; nor can I conceive why the that can be used, are in use already; they are manufacture should be held sacred now, if it be frequently detected and suppressed; nor will a to be destroyed hereafter. We are, indeed, delarger duty enable the distillers to elude the vig-sired to try how far this law will operate, that Lance of the officers with more success. Against this proposal, therefore, the inefficacy of the present law can be no objection. But it is urged that such duties would destroy the trade of distilling; and a noble Lord has been pleased to express great tenderness for a manufacture so beneficial and extensive. That a large duty, levied at the still, would we may be more able to proceed with due regard to this valuable manufacture. With regard to the operation of the law, it appears to me that it will only enrich the govern ment without reforming the people; and I believe there are not many of a different opinion. If any diminution of the sale of spirits be expect ed from it, it is to be considered that this dimi nution will, or will not, be such as is desired for the reformation of the people. If it be sufficient, the manufacture is at an end, and all the reasons against a higher duty are of equal force against his; but if it is not sufficient, we have, at least, omitted part of our duty, and have neglected the health and virtue of the people. this fund is mortgaged to the public creditors, they can prevail upon the Commons to change the security. They may continue the bill in force for the reasons, whatever they are, for which they have passed it; and the good intentions of our ministers, however sincere, may be defeated, and drunkenness, legal drunkenness, established in the nation. I can not, my Lords, yet discover why a reprieve is desired for this manufacture-why the This, my Lords, is very reasonable, and therepresent year is not equally propitious to the ref-fore we ought to exert ourselves for the safety of ormation of mankind as any will be that may suc- the nation while the power is yet in our own ceed it. It is true we are at war with two na- hands, and, without regard to the opinion or protions, and perhaps with more; but war may be ceedings of the other House, show that we are better prosecuted without money than without yet the chief guardians of the people. men. And we but little consult the military glory of our country if we raise supplies for paying our armies by the destruction of those armies that we are contriving to pay. We have heard the necessity of reforming the nation by degrees urged as an argument for imposing first a lighter duty, and afterward a heavier. This complaisance for wickedness, my Lords, is not so defensible as that it should be battered by arguments in form, and therefore I shall only relate a reply made by Webb, the noted walker, upon a parallel occasion. This man, who must be remembered by many of your Lordships, was remarkable for vigor, both of mind and body, and lived wholly upon water for his drink, and chiefly upon vegetables for his other sustenance. He was one day recommending his regimen to one of his friends who loved wine, and who perhaps might somewhat contribute to the prosperity of this spirituous manufacture, and urged him, with great earnestness, to quit a course of luxury by which his health and his intellects would equally be destroyed. The gentleman appeared convinced, and told him "that he would conform to his counsel, and thought he could not change his course of life at once, but would leave off strong liquors by degrees." "By degrees!" says the other, with indignation. "If you should unhappily fall into the fire, would you caution your servants not to pull you out but by degrees?" This answer, my Lords, is applicable to the present case. The nation is sunk into the lowest state of corruption; the people are not only vicious, but insolent beyond example. They not only break the laws, but defy them; and yet some of your Lordships are for reforming them by degrees! I am not so easily persuaded, my Lords, that our ministers really intend to supply the defects that may hereafter be discovered in this bill. It will doubtless produce money, perhaps much more than they appear to expect from it. I doubt not but the licensed retailers will be more than fifty thousand, and the quantity retailed must increase with the number of retailers. As the bill will, therefore, answer all the ends intended by it, I do not expect to see it altered; for I have never observed ministers desirous of amending their own errors, unless they are such as have caused a deficiency in the revenue. Besides my Lords, it is not certain that, when The ready compliance of the Commons with the measures proposed in this bill has been mentioned here, with a view, I suppose, of influencing us, but surely by those who had forgotten our independence, or resigned their own. It is not only the right, but the duty of either House, to deliberate, without regard to the determinations of the other; for how should the nation re. ceive any benefit from the distinct powers that compose the Legislature, unless the determinations are without influence upon each other? If either the example or authority of the Commons can divert us from following our own convictions, we are no longer part of the Legislature; we have given up our honors and our privileges, and what then is our concurrence but slavery, or our suffrage but an echo? The only argument, therefore, that now remains, is the expediency of gratifying those, by whose ready subscription the exigencies our new statesmen have brought upon us have been supported, and of continuing the security by which they have been encouraged to such liberal contributions. Public credit, my Lords, is indeed of very great importance; but public credit can never be long supported without public virtue; nor in deed, if the government could mortgage the morals and health of the people, would it be just and rational to confirm the bargain. If the ministry can raise money only by the destruction of their fellow-subjects, they ought to abandon those schemes for which the money is necessary; for what calamity can be equal to unbounded wickedness? But, my Lords, there is no necessity for a choice which may cost our ministers so much regret; for the same subscriptions may be procured by an offer of the same advantages to a fund of any other kind, and the sinking fund will easily supply any deficiency that might be suspected in another scheme. To confess the truth, I should feel very little pain from an account that the nation was for some time determined to be less liberal of their contributions; and that money was withheld till it was known in what expeditions it was to be employed, to what princes subsidies were to be paid, and what advantages were to be purchased by it for our country. I should rejoice, my Lords, to hear that the lottery by which the deficiencies of this duty are to be supplied was not filled only to thin the ranks of mankind, and to disburden the world of the multitudes that inhabit it; and is perhaps the strongest proof of political sagacity that our new ministers have yet exhibited. They well know, my lords, that they are universally detested, and that, whenever a Briton is destroyed, they are freed from an enemy; they have therefore opened the flood-gates of gin upon the nation, that, when it is less numerous, it may be more easily governed. Other ministers, my Lords, who had not attained to so great a knowledge in the art of making war upon their country, when they found their enemies clamorous and bold, used to awe them with prosecutions and penalties, or destroy them like burglars, with prisons and with gibbets. But every age, my Lords, produces some im provement; and every nation, however degen The lotteries, my Lords, which former ministers have proposed, have always been censured by those who saw their nature and their tendency. They have been considered as legal cheats, by which the ignorant and the rash are defrauded, and the subtle and avaricious often enriched; they have been allowed to divert the people from trade, and to alienate them from useful industry. A man who is uneasy in his circumstances and idle in his disposition, collects the remains of his fortune and buys tickets in a lottery, retires from business, indulges himself in laziness, and waits, in some obscure place, the event of his adventure. Another, instead of em-erate, gives birth, at some happy period of time, ploying his stock in trade, rents a garret, and makes it his business, by false intelligence and chimerical alarms, to raise and sink the price of tickets alternately, and takes advantage of the lies which he has himself invented. to men of great and enterprising genius. It is Such, my Lords, is the traffic that is produced by this scheme of getting money; nor were these inconveniences unknown to the present ministers in the time of their predecessors, whom they never ceased to pursue with the loudest clamors whenever the exigencies of the govern-destroy the lives of some and the senses of othment reduced them to a lottery. If I, my Lords, might presume to recommend to our ministers the most probable method of raising a large sum for the payment of the troops of the Electorate, I should, instead of the tax and lottery now proposed, advise them to establish a certain number of licensed wheel-barrows, on which the laudable trade of thimble and button might be carried on for the support of the war, and shoe-boys might contribute to the defense of the house of Austria by raffling for apples. ers; but either of these effects will answer the purposes of the ministry, to whom it is indiffer ent, provided the nation becomes insensible, whether pestilence or lunacy prevails among them. Either mad or dead the greatest part of the people must quickly be, or there is no hope of the continuance of the present ministry. For this purpose, my Lords, what could have been invented more efficacious than an establishment of a certain number of shops at which poi. son may be vended-poison so prepared as to Having now, my Lords, examined, with the please the palate, while it wastes the strength, utmost candor, all the reasons which have been and only kills by intoxication? From the first offered in defense of the bill, I can not conceal instant that any of the enemies of the ministry the result of my inquiry. The arguments have shall grow clamorous and turbulent, a crafty had so little effect upon my understanding, that, hireling may lead him to the ministerial slaughas every man judges of others by himself, I can ter-house, and ply him with their wonder-worknot believe that they have any influence evening liquor till he is no longer able to speak or upon those that offer them, and therefore I am think; and, my Lords, no man can be more convinced that this bill must be the result of agreeable to our ministers than he that can neiconsiderations which have been hitherto conceal-ther speak nor think, except those who speak ed, and is intended to promote designs which are never to be discovered by the authors before their execution. With regard to these motives and designs, however artfully concealed, every Lord in this House is at liberty to offer his conjectures. without thinking. But, my Lords, the ministers ought to reflect, that though all the people of the present age are their enemies, yet they have made no trial of the temper and inclinations of posterity. Our successors may be of opinions very different from When I consider, my lords, the tendency of ours. They may perhaps approve of wars on this bill, I find it calculated only for the propa- the Continent, while our plantations are insulted gation of diseases, the suppression of industry, and our trade obstructed; they may think the and the destruction of mankind. I find it the support of the house of Austria of more importmost fatal engine that ever was pointed at a peo-ance to us than our own defense; and may per ple; an engine by which those who are not kill-haps so far differ from their fathers, as to imag ed will be disabled, and those who preserve their limbs will be deprived of their senses. This bill therefore, appears to be designed ine the treasures of Britain very properly em ployed in supporting the troops, and increasing the splendor. of a foreign Electorate. LORD CHATHAM. THE name of CHATHAM is the representative, in our language, of whatever is bold and commanding in eloquence. Yet his speeches are so imperfectly reported, that it is not so much from them as from the testimony of his contemporaries, that we have gained our conceptions of his transcendent powers as an orator. We measure his greatness, as we do the height of some inaccessible cliff, by the shadow it casts behind. Hence it will be proper to dwell more at large on the events of his politica life; and especially to collect the evidence which has come down to us by tradition of his astonishing sway over the British Senate. of WILLIAM PITT, first Earl of Chatham, was descended from a family of high re spectability in Cornwall, and was born at London, on the 15th of November, 1708 At Eton, where he was placed from boyhood, he was distinguished for the quick ness of his parts and for his habits of unwearied application, though liable, much of his time, to severe suffering from a hereditary gout. Here he acquired that love of the classics which he carried with him throughout life, and which operated so pow erfully in forming his character as an orator. He also formed at Eton those habits easy and animated conversation for which he was celebrated in after life. Cut off by disease from the active sports of the school, he and Lord Lyttleton, who was a greater invalid than himself, found their chief enjoyment during the intervals of study, in the lively interchange of thought. By the keenness of their wit and the brilliancy of their imaginations, they drew off their companions, Fox, Hanbury Williams, Fielding, and others, from the exercises of the play-ground, to gather around them as eager listeners; and gained that quickness of thought, that dexterity of reply, that ready self-possession under a sudden turn of argument or the sharpness of retort, which are indispensable to success in public debate. Almost every great orator has been distinguished for his conversational powers. At the age of eighteen, Mr. Pitt was removed to the University of Oxford. Here, in connection with his other studies, he entered on that severe course of rhetorical training which he often referred to in after life, as forming so large a part of his early discipline. He took up the practice of writing out translations from the ancient orators and historians, on the broadest scale. Demosthenes was his model; and we are told that he rendered a large part of his orations again and again into English, as the best means of acquiring a forcible and expressive style. The practice was highly recommended by Cicero, from his own experience. It aids the young orator far more effectually in catching the spirit of his model, than any course of mere reading, however fervent or repeated. It is, likewise, the severest test of his command of language. To clothe the thoughts of another in a dress which is at once "close and easy" (an excellent, though quaint description of a good translation) is a task of extreme difficulty. As a means of acquiring copiousness of diction and an exact choice of words, Mr. Pitt also read and re-read the sermons of Dr. Barrow, till he knew many of them by heart. With the same view, he performed a task to which, perhaps, no other student in oratory has ever submitted. He went twice through the folio Dictionary of Bailey (the best before that of Johnson), examining each word attentively, dwelling on its peculiar import and modes of construction, and thus endeavoring to bring the whole range of our language completely under his control. At this time, also, he began those exercises in elocution by which he is known to have obtained his extraordinary powers of delivery. Though gifted by nature with a commanding voice and person, he spared no effort to add every thing that art could confer for his improvement as an orator. His success was commensurate with his zeal. Garrick himself was not a greater actor, in that higher sense of the term in which Demosthenes declared action to be the first, and second, and third thing in oratory. The labor which he bestowed on these exercises was surprisingly great. Probably no man of genius since the days of Cicero, has ever submitted to an equal amount of drudgery. Leaving the University a little before the regular time of graduation, Mr. Pitt traveled on the Continent, particularly in France and Italy. During this tour, he enriched his mind with a great variety of historical and literary information, making every thing subservient, however, to the one great object of preparing for public life. 'He thus acquired," says Lord Chesterfield, a vast amount of premature and useful knowledge." On his return to England, he applied a large part of his slender patrimony to the purchase of a commission in the army, and became a Cornet of the Blues. This made him dependent on Sir Robert Walpole, who was then Prim Minister; but, with his characteristic boldness and disregard of consequences, he took his stand, about this time, in the ranks of Opposition. Walpole, by his jealousy, had made almost every man of talents in the Whig party his personal enemy. His long continuance in office, against the wishes of the people, was considered a kind of tyranny; and young men like Pitt, Lyttleton, &c., who came fresh from college, with an ardent love of liberty inspired by the study of the classics, were naturally drawn to the standard of Pulteney, Carteret, and the other leading "Patriots," who declaimed so vehemently against a corrupt and oppressive government. The Prince of Wales, in consequence of a quarrel with his father, had now come out as head of the Opposition. A rival court was established at Leicester House, within the very precincts of St. James's Palace, which drew together such an assemblage of wits, scholars, and orators, as had never before met in the British empire. Jacobites, Tories, and Patriots were here united. The insidious, intriguing, but highlygifted Carteret; the courtly Chesterfield; the impetuous Argyle; Pulteney, with a keenness of wit, and a familiarity with the classics which made him as brilliant in conversation as he was powerful in debate; Sir John Barnard, with his strong sense and penetrating judgment; Sir William Wyndham, with his dignified sentiments and lofty bearing; and "the all-accomplished Bolingbroke, who conversed in language as elegant as that he wrote, and whose lightest table-talk, if transferred to paper, would, in its style and matter, have borne the test of the severest criticism" these, together with the most distinguished literary men of the age, formed the court of Frederick, and became the intimate associates of Mr. Pitt. On a mind so ardent and aspiring, so well prepared to profit by mingling in such society, so gifted with the talent of transferring to itself the kindred excellence of other minds, the company of such men must have acted with extraordinary power; and it is probable that all his rhetorical studies had less effect in making him the orator that he was, than his intimacy with the great leaders of the Opposition at the court of the Prince of Wales. Mr. Pitt became a member of Parliament in 1735, at the age of twenty-six. For nearly a year he remained silent, studying the temper of the House, and waiting for a favorable opportunity to come forward. Such an opportunity was presented by the marriage of the Prince of Wales, in April, 1736. It was an event of the highest interest and joy to the nation; but such was the King's animosity against his son, that he would not suffer the address of congratulation to be moved, as usual, by the ministers of the Crown. The motion was brought forward by Mr. Pulteney; and it |