Broadside entitled 'The Deadly Groans of the Whisky Stills'

Transcription

The DEADLY GROANS of the WHISKY STILLS.
Who were cohdcmned to suffer Martyrdom on the 17th of this present
month of July 1795, for the horrid and bloody murder of sterving
above 200,000 prosessed Christians in this island.

With the sorrowful Lamentation of all the Dram Drinker's.

COME all ye that are fond of me, it is to
you that I now For this time address myself,
Oh my dear friends, you have no doubt, heard
of the fatal stroke that I am about to receive
on the 17th of this present month, and in or-
der that you may pity me now under the sen-
tence of almost total annihilation from society,
especially those of my greatest admiters; Oh,
my dear friends, what will now become of you,
who clasped me into your very bosom every
morning ! you will no more court me upon so
easy terms as you have hitherto done.

It will be necessary, in order that you may
condole with me, that you know my name and
designation ; it is true 1 have got a great many
names, or as I should rather call them nick-
names, which differ very materially from that
which I first had, which was Aquavitae, or
more properly speaking the water of life; the
name I generally go by at this day is WHISKY,
a name which differs very much from the
original of my origin ; but those who were my
real friends, always gave me a new name, which
I the more readily put up with as I knew them
to be my real admires, and it now gives me the
greatest effacation, that I must be sorever bani-
shed from the society of all those, who took so
much delight in my company, and was always
happy, when they had me stending on the table
before them. My friend would say to his
neighbour, will you take a dram, or will you
take a caulker, or will you taste the blue this
morning, you will be much the better of it; and
if my friend and lover got his neighbour to par-
take of me it was rarely that he lost any thing
by introducing me to his acquaintance, for I
very often was returned with new strength, and
I was swallowed up with the greatest delight in
mouthfuls; and such as were dumb, I made
them speak with the greatest case by the time
I had touched their tongue with half a dozen of
fills of my little christal Jacket, my dear could
talk of politicks, and the weighty affairs of state,
with the greatest volatility, and case. I then
could beat the French with big words & strange
grimaces.

Our wise legislators, who are no doubt,
possessed with a great deal of wisdom have fat
upon me, tried and condemned me to six months

annihilation, not for any crime that they found
in me, but that I was destructive to that poor
diminitive grain called Barley, which few or
none can make use of until it be metamorpho-
sed into my pure and christaline form. May,
in this transparent colour I have added thou-
sands to his Majest's forces, and for all these
good offices I have done, I am doom'd to
destruction.

And there is nothing hurts me more, than
that of a temporary death, it ever I come a-
gain into existence, I am much afraid that many
of my most intimate acquaintance will be gone
sorever to the place of oblivion, for want of
that comfort which I usually gave to those
who were my hourly companions.

It has been often said that I was the death
of thoufands of the leige subjects, but I can in-
controvertibly prove that those who have for-
saken, and given over taking me into their bo-
soms, have died very soon thereafter, whilst
those who have continued by me, are living
witnesses of the truth of what I aver, and I
am certain before the end of January thousands
will die with the greatest heaviness on their
spirits for the want of ME to comforts them.

It is now proposed that all those who are
possessed of Stills, will send them into the dif-
ferent barracks, now erected in the kingdom,
in purpose that their masters may not be oblig-
ed to pay rent for useless utenfils. and to ga-
ther all the lick sticks in the island to watch
them; and as they will be out of employ-
ment, and for tear of them getting a bad
habit of idleness, it will be requisite they
undergo the exercise of their duty, in case
they forget how to perform it when rhey
are again set agoing, And besides this it will
be another advantage, as they will defend the
barracks, while our brave soldiers are keeping
the French from landing on our Coasts; and if
this employment shall be found to be too little
for them to distill a little now and then of a supe-
rior strength, in order to manufacturs powder
with It, to shoot at the French if they shall
attempt a landing, and if they should, dare to
land, these idle gentry will be ready to destroy
whatever may remain, for fear of these banditi
getting possession of it, as the Cormagnols are
said to fight best when they have got drunk,

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