When they found that new expenses required new taxes, it was necessary to examine what could be taxed, or upon which part of the nation any other burdens could be laid without immediate ruin. They turned over the catalogue of all our manufactures, and found, that scarcely any of the conveniencies, or even the necessaries of life, were without an impost. They examined all the classes of our traders, and readily discovered, that the greatest number of those who endeavoured to support themselves by honest industry, were struggling with poverty, and scarcely able to provide to-day what would be necessary to-morrow. They saw our prisons crowded with debtors, and our papers filled with the names of bankrupts, of whom many may be supposed to have miscarried without idleness, extravagance, or folly. They saw, therefore, my lords, that industry must sink under any addition to its load, a consideration which could afford no proof of the abundance of our wealth. They saw that our commodities would be no longer manufactured, if their taxes were increased; and, therefore, it was necessary to raise money by some other method, since all those which have been hitherto practised were precluded. This, my lords, was no easy task; but however difficult, it has been accomplished; and to those great politicians must posterity be indebted for a new scheme of supplying the expenses of a war. In the time of the late ministry it had been observed, that drunkenness was become a vice almost universal among the common people; and that as the liquor which they generally drank was such that they could destroy their reason by a small quantity, and at a small expense, the consequence of general drunkenness was general idleness; since no man would work any longer than was necessary to lay him asleep for the remaining part of the day. They remarked, likewise, that the liquor which they generally drank was to the last degree pernicious to health, and destructive of that corporeal vigour by which the business of life is to be carried on; and a law was therefore made, by which it was intended that this species of debauchery, so peculiarly fatal, should be prevented.