remarks.

There are two distinct things which make the payment of taxes difficult;
the one is the large and real value of the sum to be paid, and the other
is the scarcity of the thing in which the payment is to be made; and
although these appear to be one and the same, they are in several
instances riot only different, but the difficulty springs from different
causes.

Suppose a tax to be laid equal to one half of what a man's yearly income
is, such a tax could not be paid, because the property could not be
spared; and on the other hand, suppose a very trifling tax was laid, to
be collected in pearls, such a tax likewise could not be paid, because
they could not be had. Now any person may see that these are distinct
cases, and the latter of them is a representation of our own.

That the difficulty cannot proceed from the former, that is, from the
real value or weight of the tax, is evident at the first view to any
person who will consider it.

The amount of the quota of taxes for this State for the year, 1780, (and
so in proportion for every other State,) is twenty millions of dollars,
which at seventy for one, is but sixty-four thousand two hundred and
eighty pounds three shillings sterling, and on an average, is no more
than three shillings and five pence sterling per head, per annum, per
man, woman and child, or threepence two-fifths per head per month. Now
here is a clear, positive fact, that cannot be contradicted, and which
proves that the difficulty cannot be in the weight of the tax, for in
itself it is a trifle, and far from being adequate to our quota of the
expense of the war. 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 s