fairly drawn from facts and their own premises., And yet this their enormous estate is, by their instructions, to be exempted, while all their fellow-subjects groan under the weight of taxes for its defence! it being the first attacked in the present war, and part of it on the Ohio, the prize contended for by the enemy For though they, towards the end of this instruction, pretend to be 'most ready and willing to bear a just proportion along with their tenants in any necessary tax for the defence of the province,' yet this appears clearly to be a mere pretence, since they absolutely except their quit-rents, and their located unimproved lands, their fines, and the purchase-monies they have at interest; that is, in a manner, their whole estate, as your committee know of little they have left to be taxed, but a ferry-house or two, a kitchen, and a dog-kennel. But unimproved lands should not, in our proprietaries opinion, pay any taxes, because they yield no annual profit.' This may deceive people in England (where the value of land is much at a stay) as they are unacquainted with the nature of landed estates in growing plantations. Here new lands, without cultivation, without fencing, or so much as cutting down a tree, being reserved and laid by for a market till the surrounding lands are settled, improve much more in yearly value even than money at interest upon interest. Thirty years ago, the best and richest lands near the proprietary's Conestogoe manor, were worth and sold for about forty pounds per hundred acres. That manor was then laid out and reserved, containing near seventeen thousand acres; and now the lands of that very manor, which, though so long located, have never yet been cultivated, will sell for three hundred and fifty pounds per hundred acres; which is near nine for one, or eight hundred per cent. advance! can an estate thus producing twenty-five per cent. per annum on the prime cost, be, with any propriety, called 'an estate yielding no annual profit?' is it not a well known practice in the colonies, to lay out great sums of ready money for lands, without the least intent of cultivation, but merely to sell them again hereafter? would people follow this practice if they could not make more profit of their money in that way than by employing it in improvement of land, in trade, or in putting it to interest, though interest in the plantations is from six to ten per centum. Does not such land, though otherwise unimproved, improve continually in its value? how mean and unjust is it then, in these gentlemen, to attempt to conceal the advantages of this kind of estate, and screen it from taxes, by lurking under the ambiguous and deceitful terms, of unimproved lands, and lands yielding no annual profit! Meanly unjust indeed, in this instance, do they appear to your committee; who cannot but observe, that the proprietaries, knowing their own inclinations to screen their own estates, and load those of the people, from thence suspected the people might be equally unjust, and intend, by the fifty thousand pounds bill, to ease their estates and load those of the proprietaries. The bill, say they, appears to us to be most unjustly calcuFated, for the purpose of putting it in the power of persons, wholly chosen by the people, to tax our estates up to the full value therein mentioned, and to ease other persons by taxing them so lightly, as only to make up the residue that might be wanted to complete the fifty thousand pounds. In which case the persons chosen by the people might have laid by much the greatest part of the burden upon our estates alone.' Had they intended to raise much the greatest part ofthe tax of fifty thousand pounds on the proprietaries estate would the house so readily have accepted of five thousand pounds in lieu of their share of that tax? but why this suspicion of the assembly? What instance of injustice can the proprietaries charge them with, that could give ground for such a supposition? if they were capable of such an intention, and an endeavour to get iniquity established by a law, must they not be the most unjust and dishonest of men? the assessors, it is true, are chosen by the people; they always were so by our laws; and let a man's estate be ever so great, he has but one vote in the choice of them; but have the proprietaries no friends in their province? what is become of all their dependants and expectants; those in place, or hoping for places; the thousands in their debt; the mortgagors at their mercy? will none of these, out of love, or hope, or fear, vote for honest assessors, that may take care the proprietary is not oppressed by the weight of an unjust tax? could the assembly be certain, that the whole people were so wicked, as to join in choosing and trusting sets of dishonest assessors, merely to wrong the proprietary? are there no laws in the province against perjury; are not the assessors by law to be sworn or affirmed to assess themselves and all others impartially; and have they not always been chosen as men of note for probity and justice? what a dark prospect must a man's own heart afford him, when he can from thence form such ideas of the hearts of a whole people! a people famous throughout the world, for the justice and equity of their laws, the purity of their manners, their humanity and hospitality to strangers, their affec tion to their late honored proprietary, their faithfulness in their manufactures and produce, and uprightness in all their dealings! and to whose virtue and industry these very gentlemen owe all their present greatness! The proprietaries are pleased farther to say, that the laying taxes on the real value of the fee-simple, and the sale of land for the payment of taxes, are contrary to the laws and statutes of Great Britain.' Your com. mittee cannot find that any laws or statutes were ever made in Great Britain to regulate the mode of laying taxes in the plantations; and if there are none such, our bill could not be contrary to what never existed. In Virgi nia the taxes are laid on slaves, and paid in tobacco; and every colony has its own mode of taxation, suited to its own circumstances, almost all different from each other as well as from that used in England. But different from, and contrary to, we conceive to be distinct and different things; otherwise many of our laws, even those which have been approved at home, and received the royal assent, are contrary to the laws of England. But as we said before, the laws of England themselves, make lands liable to pay debts in the colonies; and therefore to sell them, or a part of them, to pay public debts, is not contrary to, but conformable with, the laws of England. But the proprietaries 'cannot find that the quit-rents reserved to the crown, in any of the other American colonies, have ever been taxed towards the raising any supplies granted in those colonies; and indeed those quit-rents are generally so small (meaning the king's quit-rents, we suppose, for their own surely are large enough) that little or no land tax, would be due or payable on them, if arising in Great Britain, &c.' If your committee are rightly informed, the king's quit-rents in the other colonies, are applied to public purposes, generally for the service of the colony that raises them. When our proprietaries shall think fit to apply those arising here in the same manner, we believe no assembly will attempt to tax them. The smallness of the parts, we cannot conceive to be a good reason for not taxing the whole. Where every man worth less than twenty shillings a year is exempt from taxes, he who enjoys a thousand a year might, as well as our proprietaries, plead to be excused, for that his income is only twenty thousand shillings, each of which shillings is far within the sum exempted by law. In the whole, though what arises from each estate be no great sum, their quit-rents must amount to a very great revenue; and their speaking of them in the diminutive terms of very small quit-rents or acknowlegments, is only to amuse and deceive. They are property; and property should pay for its own preservation. They ought therefore to be taxed to the defence of the country. The proprietaries indeed say, a land tax was unnecessary, as there are many other ways of raising money. They would doubtless choose any way in which their estate could not be included. But what are those many other ways? Britain, an independent state, can lay infinite duties, on all foreign wares, and imported luxuries. We are suffered little foreign trade, and almost all our superfluities are sent us from Britain itself. Will she permit us to discourage their importation by heavy imposts? or to raise funds by taxing her manufactures? a variety of excises and duties serve only to multiply offices and officers, and to make a part of the people pay for another part who do not choose to pay. No excise or 'duty, was ever a fair and unequal tax on property. The fairest, as the proprietaries themselves have acknowleged, is a poundage on all real and personal estate, according to its value. We are now to hear of the generosity of the proprietaries, who, as they say, 'were so far from desiring not to contribute to the defence and support of his majesty's rights and dominions, that immediately on the first notice of the defeat of general Braddock, they had sent over an order upon their receiver general, to pay five thousand pounds as a free gift towards the defence of the said province.' We may presume to ask, why, when they knew the assemblies were continually worried to give money, and the bills in which it was offered as constantly rejected; why did they not unmanacle their governor, and at the same time set an example of zeal for the common cause by a generous gift on their part, before they heard of that defeat? why not as soon as they knew he was sent to America? why not on Washington's defeat, or before his first expedition, as soon as ever their province was attacked, and they learnt that the enemy had built a fort in it? but the truth is, the order was sent, not immediately on the news of Braddock's defeat; the date of the order will show that it was a month after that news arrived in England. But it was immediately after they had advice, that the governor had refused a grant of fifty thousand pounds to the crown for the defence of the proprietaries province, because their estate was taxed in the bill, alleging restrictions from them on that head; against which all the world exclaimed, and an universal odium was falling on their heads, and the king's wrath justly dreaded; then it was, that the boasted order issued. And yet, as soon as their fears subsided, it was sincerely repented, and every underhand step taken to get the act, in which their gift was fix-. eð, disapproved at home; though if they had succeeded, when the bills emitted were abroad, and in the hands of the public, many of the poor soldiers, who had received them in pay for their services, would have been ruined, and multitudes of others greatly injured. And after all, this free gift, to be immediately paid, is not yet paid, though more than a year is elapsed since the order was given; and contracts, entered into by the com. missioners in confidence of receiving that money, are yet unsatisfied, to the loss and disappointment of many, and great detriment to the service. However, if we will have a land tax, they are pleased to form a bill for us, or at least to direct what clauses shall be in, and what shall not be in it, thus violating the most essential right of the commons in a British constitution! and with this particular injunction, that the tax shall be laid for no more than one year; and shall not exceed four shillings in the pound on the income; which, estimating estates at twenty years purchase, is about a fifth of a twentieth, or, in plainer words, a hundredth part of the value. Perhaps this may be well enough in times of tranquillity; but when a province is invaded, must it be given up to the enemy, if a tax of the hundredth penny is not sufficient to save it? Yes, that is our present situation; for the proprietaries instructions are, it seems, unalterable. Their gover nor is bound to observe and inforce them, and must see the king's province perish before his eyes, rather than deviate from them a single tittle. This we have experienced within a few days, when advantage being cruelly taken of our present unhappy situation, the prostrate condition of our bleeding country, the knife of the savages at her throat, our soldiers ready to mutiny for want of pay and necessaries, our people flying in despair from the frontier for want of protection, the assembly was compelled (like Solomon's true mother) to wave her right, to alter our money bills, abridge our free grant to the crown by one half, and, in short, to receive and enact a law not agreeable to our judgments, but such as was made for us by the proprietary instructions, and the will and pleasure of the governor's council; whereby our constitution and the liberties of our country are wounded in the most essential part, and even violated and destroyed. We have reason to con fide, however, in the justice of our sovereign and a British parliament, that this tyranny shall not long subsist; and we hope no time will be lost in mak ing the proper application. In fine, we must say, in justice to the house, that the proprietary's charge against the assembly, as being inclined by their authority to tax the proprietary estate disproportionately, &c.' is, to our knowlege, groundless and unjust. They had as little inclination as authority to wrong him. They have not, it seems, authority enough to oblige him to do justice. As to their inclination, they bear, every one of them, and maintain, the character of honest men. When the proprietaries shall be truly willing to bear an equitable part of the public burden; when they shall renounce their exorbitant demand of rent as the exchange shall then be ; make restitution of the money which they have exacted from the assemblies of this province, and sincerely repent of their extortion, they may then, and not till then, have some claim to the same noble title. The proprietaries have for a long series of years made a great secret of the value of their estate and revenue. By accident the following authentic paper is fallen into our hands, and will serve as a ground-work on which the reader may be enabled to form some idea of the value of that estate in Pennsylvania. It is a copy of an original paper drawn by Mr. Thomas Penn himself many years ago, and endorsed "My estimate of the province, T. Penn." ESTIMATE. 1. LANDS granted since my arrival are very near 270,000 acres, of which not 10,000 have been paid for; more than of old grants are remaining unpaid; is. 2. The rent on the said grants is 5501. sterling a year, 3. The old rent, 4207. a year sterling, at ditto, is 5. To the difference between 4201. and 570/. for arrearages 6. Ferries let on short leases, the rents being 401. a year, are worth Fennsylva. Curr. £41,850 00 18,150 0 0 15,246 0 0 18,810 2722 10 0 1000 0 0 Carried over £.97,778 10 0 |