‘‘To this pernicious practice of drinking to excess, more of the crimes which disgraced the colony were to be ascribed than any other cause, and more lives where (sic) lost through this than any other circumstance, for the settlement had ever been free from epidemical or fatal diseases. How much then was the importation of spirits to be lamented? How much was it to be regretted that it had become the interest of any set of people to vend them?’’

David Collins bemoaning the influence of alcohol in crimes like murder and robbery in the early days of the NSW colony
An Account of the English Colony of NSW Volume Two (1802)