290 APPENDIX. 



for their money, and are thereby enabled, 

 in some measure, to counteract the evil 

 they have produced; while others, many 

 of them, some that have passed, and others 

 now before your Honourable House, origi- 

 nating in false premises, and projected by 

 artful and designing men, are calculated 

 to give rise to a spirit of gambling, suc- 

 cessful for a while, but which must ulti- 

 mately involve, if they have not already 

 done so, the ruin of thousands, who have, 

 under some specious pretexts, consented to 

 become their dupes; such systematic ad- 

 venturous schemes being derogatory to the 

 national character, subversive of that safe 

 and healthy state which the monetary 

 transactions of a great commercial country 

 should ever enjoy, incompatible with the 

 industrious habits, as well as prejudicial 

 to the social, moral, and religious obliga- 

 tions, of the people. 



"That your petitioner has long and 

 deeply thought of and deplored the late 



