to-destroy

Updated: May 28, 2025

The number of gallons which appears from the accounts on the table to have been consumed last year, is seven millions; 'a quantity sufficient to-destroy the health, interrupt the labour, and deprave the morals of a very great part of the nation; a quantity which, if it be suffered to continue undiminished, will, even without any legal encouragement of its use, in a short time destroy the happiness of the publick; and by impairing the strength, and lessening the number of manufacturers and labourers, introduce poverty and famine.

Samuel Johnson - The Works of Samuel Johnson, Volume 11.: Parlimentary Debates II.