Excerpt from A Collection of the Parliamentary Debates in England, Vol. 40: From the Year M, DC, LXVIII to the Present Time

The house of Commons having gone into that Committee which introduced the excise scheme, as mentioned in the tenth volume,

The debate of this important day was opened by Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, who spoke in substance as follows, viz.,

'Sir, As I had the honour to move for the house's resolving itself into this Committee, I think it incumbent upon me to open to you what was then intended to be proposed as the subject of your consideration. We are now in a Committee for considering of the most proper Methods for the better security and improvement of the duties and revenues already charged upon, and payable from tobacco and wines: This can be done in no way so proper or effectual, as that of preventing for the future those frauds, by which the public revenues have been so much injured in times passed. I know, that whoever attempts to remedy frauds, attempts a thing, that must be very disagreeable to all those who have been guilty of them, or who expect a benefit by such in time to come. This, Sir, I am fully sensible of, and from this have sprung up all those clamours which have been raised without doors against what I am now to propose to you.

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