STATE OF DELAWARE 381 



be wickedly and ruinously inadvertent, showing the 

 greatest ingratitude to Providence ; that the young 

 would be thus debauched, led away into dissipation and 

 every vicious tendency, and the taste for the orderly 

 and virtuous joys of domestic and social life be cor- 

 rupted ; that conjugal unfaith would be so occasioned, 

 disorder and extravagance be increased among the 

 citizenry, the spread and confirmation of true religion 

 hindered, &c. In a word the play is described as the 

 source and school of every vice, as the direct road to 

 Hell, and the certain means of destruction to the state. 

 Mr. Reyan on the contrary endeavored to convince the 

 House of Assembly of the good effected by plays and 

 of their influence on the polite and moral culture of 

 the young and of the people generally ; he did not for- 

 get to titillate the ambition of the members of the 

 Assembly : The most celebrated and greatest nations 

 " of the world, said he to them, have at all times had 

 ' plays and loved them : and shall this young budding 

 ' state, having in the most praiseworthy manner es- 

 ' caped the chains of threatening servitude and the 

 ' dangers of a bloody war, having made sure its claims 

 ' to a rank and dignity equal to those of the other 

 ' kingdoms of this earth, shall it in this regard think 

 'and act differently to them? No! Policy says, No! 

 -Sound reason says, No! and certainly the wisdom 

 ' and magnanimity of the House will corroborate- 

 No ! the House of Assembly did not corroborate, and the 

 majority of the votes was against the play. And the 

 proposal fell to the ground, (from which Mr. Reyan 

 promised himself the best results, according to the 

 posture of affairs then), to lay a tax on plays, as had 

 shortly before been done in the case of billiards. The 



