The quit-rents of one
penny sterling per acre on only one half of the state, come to upwards
of fifty thousand pounds, which is almost as much as all the taxes
of the present year, and as those quit-rents made no part of the taxes
then paid, and are now discontinued, the quantity of money drawn for
public-service this year, exclusive of the militia fines, which I
shall take notice of in the process of this work, is less than what
was paid and payable in any year preceding the revolution, and since
the last war; what I mean is, that the quit-rents and taxes taken
together came to a larger sum then, than the present taxes without the
quit-rents do now.
My intention by these arguments and calculations is to place the
difficulty to the right cause, and show that it does not proceed
from the weight or worth of the tax, but from the scarcity of the
medium in which it is paid; and to illustrate this point still
further, I shall now show, that if the tax of twenty millions of
dollars was of four times the real value it now is, or nearly so,
which would be about two hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling,
and would be our full quota, this sum would have been raised with more
ease, and have been less felt, than the present sum of only sixty-four
thousand two hundred and eighty pounds.
The convenience or inconvenience of paying a tax in money arises
from the quantity of money that can be spared out of trade.
When the emissions stopped, the continent was left in possession
of two hundred millions of dollars, perhaps as equally dispersed as it
was possible for trade to do it.
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