landlord, however, ceases to do his part, it is judicious than theirs) it has, in proportion to altogether impossible that the tenant should its natural strength, been still more enfeeb ed. continue to do his. As the distress of the land- The debts of Spain are of very old standing. lord increases, the agriculture of the country It was deeply in debt before the end of the must necessarily decline. sixteenth century, about a hundred years be When, by different taxes upon the neces- fore England owed a shilling. France, not saries and conveniencies of life, the owners withstanding all its natural resources, lanand employers of capital stock find, that what- guishes under an oppressive load of the same ever revenue they derive from it, will not, in a kind. The republic of the United Provinces particular country, purchase the same quan- is as much enfeebled by its debts as either tity of those necessaries and conveniencies Genoa or Venice. Is it likely that, in Great which an equal revenue would in almost any Britain alone, a practice, which has brought other, they will be disposed to remove to some either weakness or dissolution into every other other. And when, in order to raise those country, should prove altogether innocent? taxes, all or the greater part of merchants and The system of taxation established in those manufacturers, that is, all or the greater part different countries, it may be said, is inferior of the employers of great capitals, come to to that of England. I believe it is so. But it be continually exposed to the mortifying and ought to be remembered, that when the wisest vexatious visits of the tax-gatherers, this dispo- government has exhausted all the proper subsition to remove will soon be changed into an jects of taxation, it must, in cases of urgent actual removing. The industry of the coun- necessity, have recourse to improper ones. try will necessarily fall with the removal of The wise republic of Holland has, upon some the capital which supported it, and the ruin of occasions, been obliged to have recourse to taxes trade and manufactures will follow the de- as inconvenient as the greater part of those of clension of agriculture. Spain. Another war, begun before any conTo transfer from the owners of those two siderable liberation of the public revenue had great sources of revenue, land, and capital been brought about, and growing in its prostock, from the persons immediately interest-gress as expensive as the last war, may, from ed in the good condition of every particular irresistible necessity, render the British sysportion of land, and in the good management tem of taxation as oppressive as that of Holof every particular portion of capital stock, to another set of persons (the creditors of the public, who have no such particular interest), the greater part of the revenue arising from either, must, in the long-run, occasion both the neglect of land, and the waste or removal of capital stock. A creditor of the public has, no doubt, a general interest in the prosperity of the agriculture, manufactures, and commerce of the country; and consequently in the good condition of its land, and in the good management of its capital stock. Should there be any general failure or declension in any of these things, the produce of the different taxes might no longer be sufficient to pay him the annuity or interest which is due to him. But a creditor of the public, considered merely as such, has no interest in the good condition of any particular portion of land, or in the good management of any particular portion of capital stock. As a creditor of the public, he has no knowledge of any such particular portion. He has no inspection of it. He can have no care about it. Its ruin may in some cases be unknown to him, and cannot directly affect him. land, or even as that of Spain. To the honour of our present system of taxation, indeed, it has hitherto given so little embarrassment to industry, that, during the course even of the most expensive wars, the frugality and good conduct of individuals seem to have been able, by saving and accumulation, to repair all the breaches which the waste and extravagance of government had made in the general capital of the society. At the conclusion of the late war, the most expensive that Great Britain ever waged, her agriculture was as flourishing, her manufacturers as numerous and as fully employed, and her commerce as extensive, as they had ever been before. The capital, therefore, which supported all those different branches of industry, must have been equal to what it had ever been before. Since the peace, agriculture has been still further improved; the rents of houses have risen in every town and village of the country, a proof of the increasing wealth and revenue of the people; and the annual amount of the greater part of the old taxes, of the principal branches of the excise and customs, in particular, has been continually increasing, an equally clear proof of an increasing consumption, and consequently of an increasing produce, which could alone support that consumption. Great Britain seems to support with ease, a burden which, half a century ago, nobody believed her capable of supporting, Let us not, however, upon this account, rashly conclude that she is capable of supporting any burden; nor even be too confident that she could support. with- ways the measure which is both least dishon out great distress, a burden a little greater ourable to the debtor, and least hurtful to the than what has already been laid upon her. creditor. The honour of a state is surely When national debts have once been accu- very poorly provided for, when, in order to mulated to a certain degree, there is scarce, I cover the disgrace of a real bankruptcy, it believe, a single instance of their having been has recourse to a juggling trick of this kind, fairly and completely paid. The liberation so easily seen through, and at the same time of the public revenue, if it has ever been so extremely pernicious. brought about at all, has always been brought Almost all states, however, ancient as well about by a bankruptcy; sometimes by an a- as modern, when reduced to this necessity, vowed one, though frequently by a pretended have, upon some occasions, played this very payment. juggling trick. The Romans, at the end of The raising of the denomination of the coin the first Punic war, reduced the As, the coin has been the most usual expedient by which a or denomination by which they computed the real public bankruptcy has been disguised value of all their other coins, from containing under the appearance of a pretended payment. twelve ounces of copper, to contain only two If a sixpence, for example, should, either ounces; that is, they raised two ounces of by act of parliament or royal proclamation, copper to a denomination which had always be raised to the denomination of a shilling, before expressed the value of twelve ounces. and twenty sixpences to that of a pound ster- The republic was, in this manner, enabled to ling; the person who, under the old denomi- pay the great debts which it had contracted nation, had borrowed twenty shillings, or near with the sixth part of what it really owed. four ounces of silver, would, under the new, So sudden and so great a bankruptcy, we pay with twenty sixpences, or with something should in the present times be apt to imagine, less than two ounces. A national debt of must have occasioned a very violent popular about a hundred and twenty-eight millions, clamour. It does not appear to have occa near the capital of the funded and unfund- sioned any. The law which enacted it was, ed debt of Great Britain, might, in this man- like all other laws relating to the coin, introner, be paid with about sixty-four millions duced and carried through the assembly of the of our present money. It would, indeed, be people by a tribune, and was probably a very a pretended payment only, and the creditors popular law. In Rome, as in all other an of the public would really be defrauded of ten cient republics, the poor people were constantshillings in the pound of what was due to ly in debt to the rich and the great, who, in them. The calamity, too, would extend much order to secure their votes at the annual elecfurther than to the creditors of the public, tions, used to lend them money at exorbitant and those of every private person would suf- interest, which, being never paid, soon accumu. fer a proportionable loss; and this without lated into a sum too great either for the debtor any advantage, but in most cases with a great to pay, or for any body else to pay for him. additional loss, to the creditors of the public. The debtor, for fear of a very severe execution, If the creditors of the public, indeed, were was obliged, without any further gratuity, te generally much in debt to other people, they vote for the candidate whom the creditor re might in some measure compensate their loss commended. In spite of all the laws against by paying their creditors in the same coin in bribery and corruption, the bounty of the canwhich the public had paid them. But in most didates, together with the occasional distribu countries, the creditors of the public are, the tions of coin which were ordered by the senate, greater part of them, wealthy people, who stand were the principal funds from which, during more in the relation of creditors than in that the latter times of the Roman republic, the of debtors, towards the rest of their fellow-poorer citizens derived their subsistence. To citizens. A pretended payment of this kind, deliver themselves from this subjection to therefore, instead of alleviating, aggravates, in their creditors, the poorer citizens were conmost cases, the loss of the creditors of the tinually calling out, either for an entire abopublic; and, without any advantage to the lition of debts, or for what they called new public, extends the calamity to a great num- tables; that is, for a law which should entitle ber of other innocent people. It occasions a them to a complete acquittance, upon paying general and most pernicious subversion of the only a certain proportion of their accumulat fortunes of private people; enriching, in ed debts. The law which reduced the coin most cases, the idle and profuse debtor, at of all denominations to a sixth part of its forthe expense of the industrious and frugal mer value, as it enabled them to pay their creditor; and transporting a great part of the debts with a sixth part of what they really national capital from the hands which were owed, was equivalent to the most advantagelikely to increase and improve it, to those who ous new tables. In order to satisfy the peoare likely to dissipate and destroy it. When ple, the rich and the great were, upon several it becomes necessary for a state to declare it- different occasions, obliged to consent to laws, self bankrupt, in the same manner as when it both for abolishing debts, and for introducing becomes necessary for an individual to do so, new tables; and they probably were induced a fair, open, and avowed bankruptcy, is al- to consent to this law, partly for the same reason, and partly that, by liberating the pub-| This latter operation, therefore, as soon as it lic revenue, they night restore vigour to that has been discovered, and it could never be government, of which they themselves had concealed very long, has always excited much the principal direction. An operation of greater indignation than the former. The this kind would at once reduce a debt of coin, after any considerable augmentation, has L.128,000,000 to L.21.333,333:6: 8. In very seldom been brought back to its former the course of the second Punic war, the As weight; but after the greatest adulterations, it was still further reduced, first, from two has almost always been brought back to its ounces of copper to one ounce, and after- former fineness. It has scarce ever happened, wards from one ounce to half an ounce; that that the fury and indignation of the people is, to the twenty-fourth part of its original could otherwise be appeased. value. By combining the three Roman operations into one, a debt of a hundred and twenty-eight millions of our present money, night in this manner be reduced all at once to a debt of L.5,333,333:6:8. Even the enormous debt of Great Britain might in this manner soon be paid. By means of such expedients, the coin of, I believe, all nations, has been gradually reduced more and more below its original value, and the same nominal sum has been gradually brought to contain a smaller and a smaller quantity of silver. In the end of the reign of Henry VIII., and in the beginning of that of Edward VI., the English coin was not only raised in its denomination, but adulterated in its standard, The like frauds were practised in Scotland during the minority of James VI. They have occasionally been practised in most other countries. The That the public revenue of Great Britain can never be completely liberated, or even that any considerable progress can ever be made towards that liberation, while the surplus of that revenue, or what is over and above Nations have sometimes, for the same pur- defraying the annual expense of the peace pose, adulterated the standard of their coin; establishment, is so very small, it seems altothat is, have mixed a greater quantity of alloy gether in vain to expect. That liberation, it in it. If in the pound weight of our silver is evident, can never be brought about, withcoin, for example, instead of eighteen penny-out either some very considerable augmentaweight, according to the present standard, tion of the public revenue, or some equally there were mixed eight ounces of alloy; a considerable reduction of the public expense. pound sterling, or twenty shillings of such A more equal land tax, a more equal tax coin, would be worth little more than six shil-upon the rent of houses, and such alterations lings and eightpence of our present money. in the present system of customs and excise The quantity of silver contained in six shil- as those which have been mentioned in the lings and eightpence of our present money, foregoing chapter, might, perhaps, without would thus be raised very nearly to the deno- increasing the burden of the greater part of mination of a pound sterling. The adultera- the people, but only distributing the weight tion of the standard has exactly the same effect of it more equally upon the whole, produce a with what the French call an augmentation, considerable augmentation of revenue. or a direct raising of the denomination of the most sanguine projector, however, could scarce coin. flatter himself, that any augmentation of this An augmentation, or a direct raising of the kind would be such as could give any reasondenomination of the coin, always is, and from able hopes, either of liberating the public reits nature must be, an open and avowed opera-venue altogether, or even of making such protion. By means of it, pieces of a smaller gress towards that liberation in time of peace, weight and bulk are called by the same name, as either to prevent or to compensate the furwhich had before been given to pieces of a ther accumulation of the public debt in the greater weight and bulk. The adulteration next war. of the standard, on the contrary, has generally been a concealed operation. By means of it, pieces are issued from the mint, of the same denomination, and, as nearly as could be contrived, of the same weight, bulk, and appear ance, with pieces which had been current be. fore of much greater value. When king John of France, in order to pay his debts, adulterated his coin, all the officers of his mint Both operations are unjust. But a simple augmentation is an injustice of open violence; whereas an adulteration is an injustice of treacherous fraud. were sworn to secrecy. By extending the British system of taxation to all the different provinces of the empire, inhabited by people either of British or European extraction, a much greater augmentation of revenue might be expected. This, however, could scarce, perhaps, be done, consistently with the principles of the British constitution, without admitting into the British parliament, or, if you will, into the states. general of the British empire, a fair and equal representation of all those different provinces ; that of each province bearing the same proportion to the produce of its taxes, as the representation of Great Britain might bear to the produce of the taxes levied upon Great * See Du Cange Glossary, voce Moneta; the Bene- Britain. The private interest of many power dictine Edition. CRA ful individuals, the confirmed prejudices of without any variation, in all countries where one. The land tax, the stamp duties, and the different duties of customs and excise, constitute the four principal branches of the British taxes. rica, as those south of that cape are to some Ireland is certainly as able, and our American and West India plantations more able, to pay a land tax, than Great Britain. Where the landlord is subject neither to tythe nor poor's rate, he must certainly be more able to pay such a tax, than where he is subject to The excise is the only part of the British both those other burdens. The tythe, where system of taxation, which would require to there is no modus, and where it is levied in be varied in any respect, according as it was kind, diminishes more what would otherwise applied to the different provinces of the embe the rent of the landlord, than a land tax pire. It might be applied to Ireland withwhich really amounted to five shillings in the out any variation; the produce and consump pound. Such a tythe will be found, in most tion of that kingdom being exactly of the cases, to amount to more than a fourth part same nature with those of Great Britain. In of the real rent of the land, or of what remains its application to America and the West Inafter replacing completely the capital of the dies, of which the produce and consumption farmer, together with his reasonable profit. If are so very different from those of Great Briall moduses and all impropriations were taken tain, some modification might be necessary, away, the complete church tythe of Great Bri- in the same manner as in its application to tain and Ireland could not well be estimated the cyder and beer counties of England. at less than six or seven millions. If there A fermented liquor, for example, which is was no tythe either in Great Britain or Ire- called beer, but which, as it is made of moland, the landlords could afford to pay six or lasses, bears very little resemblance to our seven millions additional land tax, without beer, makes a considerable part of the combeing more burdened than a very great part mon drink of the people in America. This of them are at present. America pays no liquor, as it can be kept only for a few days, tythe, and could, therefore, very well afford cannot, like our beer, be prepared and stored to pay a land tax. The lands in America up for sale in great breweries; but every priand the West Indies, indeed, are, in general, vate family must brew it for their own use, not tenanted nor leased out to farmers. They in the same manner as they cook their viccould not, therefore, be assessed according to tuals. But to subject every private family to But neither were the lands of the odious visits and examination of the taxGreat Britain, in the 4th of William and gatherers, in the same manner as we subject Mary, assessed according to any rent roll, but the keepers of alehouses and the brewers for according to a very loose and inaccurate esti- public sale, would be altogether inconsistent mation. The lands in America might be as- with liberty. If, for the sake of equality, it sessed either in the same manner, or a cord was thought necessary to lay a tax upon ing to an equitable valuation, in consequence liquor, it might be taxed by taxing the mate of an accurate survey, like that which was rial of which it is made, either at the place of lately made in the Milanese, and in the do- manufacture, or, if the circumstances of the minions of Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia. trade rendered such an excise improper, by laying a duty upon its importation into the any rent roll. Stamp duties, it is evident, might be levied this colony in which it was to be consumed. Be-associated provinces of America contain more sides the duty of one penny a-gallon imposed than three. Those accounts, however, may by the British parliament upon the importa- have been exaggerated, in order, perhaps, eition of molasses into America, there is a pro- ther to encourage their own people, or to in vincial tax of this kind upon their importation timidate those of this country; and we shall into Massachusetts Bay, in ships belonging suppose, therefore, that our North American to any other colony, of eightpence the hogs- and West Indian colonies, taken together, con. head; and another upon their importation tain no more than three millions; or that the from the northern colonies into South Caro- whole British empire, in Europe and Amelina, of fivepence the gallon. Or, if neither rica, contains no more than thirteen millions of these methods was found convenient, each of inhabitants. If, upon less than eight mil. family might compound for its consumption lions of inhabitants, this system of taxation of this liquor, either according to the number raises a revenue of more than ten millions of persons of which it consisted, in the same sterling; it ought, upon thirteen millions of manner as private families compound for the inhabitants, to raise a revenue of more than malt tax in England; or according to the sixteen millions two hundred and fifty thoudifferent ages and sexes of those persons, in sand pounds sterling. From this revenue, the same manner as several different taxes are supposing that this system could produce it, levied in Holland; or, nearly as Sir Matthew must be deducted the revenue usually raised Decker proposes, that all taxes upon consum- in Ireland and the plantations, for defrayable commodities should be levied in Eng-ing the expense of the respective civil goland. This mode of taxation, it has already vernments. The expense of the civil and been observed, when applied to objects of a military establishment of Ireland, together speedy consumption, is not a very convenient with the interest of the public debt, amounts, one. It might be adopted, however, in cases at a medium of the two years which endwhere no better could be done. ed March 1775, to something less than se Sugar, rum, and tobacco, are commodities ven hundred and fifty thousand pounds awhich are nowhere necessaries of life, which year. By a very exact account of the reve are become objects of almost universal con-nue of the principal colonies of America and sumption, and which are, therefore, extremely the West Indies, it amounted, before the proper subjects of taxation. If a union with commencement of the present disturbances, the colonies were to take place, those com- to a hundred and forty-one thousand eight modities might be taxed, either before they hundred pounds. In this account, however, go out of the hands of the manufacturer or the revenue of Maryland, of North Carogrower; or, if this mode of taxation did not lina, and of all our late acquisitions, both upsuit the circumstances of those persons, they on the continent, and in the islands, is omitmight be deposited in public warehouses, both ted; which may, perhaps, make a difference at the place of manufacture, and at all the of thirty or forty thousand pounds. For the different ports of the empire, to which they sake of even numbers, therefore, let us supmight afterwards be transported, to remain pose that the revenue necessary for supportthere, under the joint custody of the owner ing the civil government of Ireland and the and the revenue officer, till such time as they plantations may amount to a million. There should be delivered out, either to the con- would remain, consequently, a revenue of fif sumer, to the merchant-retailer for home con- teen millions two hundred and fifty thousand sumption, or to the merchant-exporter; the pounds, to be applied towards defraying the tax not to be advanced till such delivery. general expense of the empire, and towards When delivered out for exportation, to go paying the public debt. But if, from the preduty-free, upon proper security being given, sent revenue of Great Britain, a million could, that they should really be exported out of the in peaceable times, be spared towards the payempire. These are, perhaps, the principalment of that debt, six millions two hundred commodities, with regard to which the union with the colonies might require some considerable change in the present system of British taxation. and fifty thousand pounds could very well be spared from this improved revenue. This great sinking fund, too, might be augmented every year by the interest of the debt which had What might be the amount of the revenue been discharged the year before; and might, which this system of taxation, extended to all in this manner, increase so very rapidly, as to the different provinces of the empire, might be sufficient in a few years to discharge the produce, it must, no doubt, be altogether im- whole debt, and thus to restore completely possible to ascertain with tolerable exactness. the at-present debilitated and languishing vi By means of this system, there is annually gour of the empire. In the mean time, the levied in Great Britain, upon less than eight people might be relieved from some of the millions of people, more than ten millions of most burdensome taxes; from those which revenue. Ireland contains more than two are imposed either upon the necessaries of life, millions of people, and, according to the ac or upon the materials of manufacture. The counts laid before the congress, the twelve labouring poor would thus be enabled to live |