Wesley Corpus

Indeed, an eminent distiller near London, hearing this, warmly replied, “Nay, my partner and I generally distil but a thousand quarters a week.” Perhaps so. And suppose five-and-twenty distillers, in and near the town, consume each only the same quantity: Here are five and-twenty thousand quarters a week, that is, above twelve hundred and fifty thousand a year, consumed in and about London | Add the distillers throughout England, and have we not reason to believe, that (not a thirtieth or a twentieth part only, but) little less than half the wheat produced in the kingdom is every year consumed, not by so harmless a way as throwing it into the sea, but by converting it into deadly poison; poison that naturally destroys not only the strength and life, but also the morals, of our countrymen? It may be objected, “This cannot be. We know how much corn is distilled by the duty that is paid. And hereby it appears, that scarce three hundred thousand quarters a year are distilled throughout the kingdom.” Do we know certainly, how much corn is distilled by the duty that is paid? Is it indisputable, that the full duty is paid for all the corn that is distilled? not to insist upon the multitude of private stills, which pay no duty at all. I have myself heard the servant of an eminent distiller occasionally aver, that for every gallon he distilled which paid duty, he distilled six which paid none. Yea, I have heard distillers themselves affirm, “We must do this, or we cannot live.” It plainly follows, we cannot judge, from the duty that is paid, of the quantity of corn that is distilled. “However, what is paid brings in a large revenue to the King.” Is this an equivalent for the lives of his subjects? Would His Majesty sell an hundred thousand of his subjects yearly to Algiers for four hundred thousand pounds? Surely no. Will he then sell them for that sum, to be butchered by their own countrymen? “But otherwise the swine for the Navy cannot be fed.” Not unless they are fed with human flesh ! Not unless they are fatted with human blood O, tell it not in Constantinople, that the English raise the royal revenue by selling the flesh and blood of their countrymen I 4. But why are oats so dear?