Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Miscellanies.

An Extract from a Series of Letters on the Characters of Men and Nations.

After enumerating the evils with which Society is afflicted, through the prevalency of intemperate drinking—the writer thus continues.

And why are not all the powers of genius and authority of legislators armed against this cruel invader of the happiness of man? why are not the friends of humanity more unanimously and more vigorously engaged in the use of all possible means to reclaim, and even to allure men from the fatal influence of so noxious an enemy; not regarding the pains or the expense with which their benevolent exertions may be necessarily attended.

It has been commonly supposed that it is impossible to withhold such as have been for years accustomed to intemperate drinking, from the intoxicating cup; or effectually to restrain from other infamous vices, those over whom they have tyrannised; a very discouraging consideration, this, to the benevolent who are using their endeavours to reform the vicious, the number of whom is so great in the most civilised and best governed states or kingdoms. But if neither young nor old are to be reclaimed, vain indeed are all hopes of making additions to the happiness of society: And we shall never enjoy the exalted pleasure of beholding a race of virtuous youth adorning those states, where liberty and independence have only yielded the power of great numbers of their inhabitants to rush lawless and unrestrained to a tremendous ruin: Tremendous indeed must it appear to those who will suffer themselves to realise the pernicious consequences that inevitably follow from an excusable inattention to the morals of the people, and for want of proper care and pains in forming the minds of youth to virtue, and guarding them from every species of intemperance.

But, those who would maintain the impossibility of reclaiming such persons as have been addicted to intemperate drinking, must not be allowed to be competent judges how much may be effected in this important respect, until they have with indefatigable pains and unrestrained generosity tried every means that wisdom and policy can devise. Those may be justly esteemed the best judges of what may be done, who having happily recovered themselves (and there are instances of such) from habits of intemperate drinking, have attained to the right use of their rational powers, and to the enjoyment of those durable pleasures which are to be found only with the virtuous. May all the force of eloquence and alarming powers of description be set in motion, in liveliest colours, to represent how deeply we are interested, that this madness of intemperance be effectually restrained, which has invaded such numbers of our fellow creatures; and (shocking as it is to relate) the poisonous infection has seized on many of the female sex, and many young persons, among the poor, of both sexes, foreboding the most complicated wretchedness and misery that can fall upon society, and which must exclude all hopes of the happiness and prosperity arising from virtue and industry; unless the vicious progress is prevented by extraordinary exertions and vigorous use of every untried means. You loudly complain of irreligion, and profanity of fraud, extortion and oppression—strike at the root of those evils, intemperance, in its various forms—a eradicated from the face of the earth—and the virtues which beautify and adorn our natures, shall grow up and flourish in their stead, like the fairest flowers of the well cultivated garden.

If intemperance, luxury and extravagance have subverted nations, and overthrown the proudest empires, If the improvements of learning, of arts