“Great Nassau, Immortal name! Britain’s deliverer From slavery, from wooden shoes and chains, Dungeons and fire; attendants on the sway Of tyrants bigotted and zeal accurst, Of holy butchers, prelates insolent, Despotic and bloodthirsty! He who did Expiring liberty revive (who wrought Salvation wondrous!) God-like hero! He It was, who to compleat our happiness With liberty, restored Geneva introduced. O Britons. O my countrymen can you To glorious William now commence ingrates And spurn his ashes? Can you vilify The sovereign cordial he has pointed out, Which by your own misconduct only can Prove detrimental? Martial William drank Geneva, yet no age could ever boast A braver prince than he. Within his breast Glowed every royal virtue! Little sign, O Genius of _malt liquor_! that Geneva Debilitates the limbs and health impairs And mind enervates. Men for learning famed And skill in medicine prescribed it then Frequent in recipe, nor did it want Success to recommend its virtues vast To late posterity.” In 1736 Lord Hervey, describing the state of England, says: The drunkenness of the common people was so universal by the retailing a liquor called Gin, with which they could get drunk for a groat, that the whole town of London and many towns in the country swarmed with drunken people from morning till night, and were more like a scene of a Bacchanal than the residence of a civil society. Retailers exhibited placards in their windows, intimating that people might get drunk for the sum of 1_d._ and that clean straw would be provided for customers in the most comfortable of cellars.