d come again into power. If he
does, I will predict that some of the fastest friends of that minister
will desert him upon this point. As to port duties he has damned them
all in the lump, by declaring them[83] "contrary to the first principles
of colonization, and not less prejudicial to the interests of Great
Britain than to those of the colonies." Surely this single observation
of his ought to have taught him a little caution; he ought to have begun
to doubt, whether there is not something in the nature of commercial
colonies, which renders them an unfit object of taxation; when port
duties, so large a fund of revenue in all countries, are by himself
found, in this case, not only improper, but destructive. However, he has
here pretty well narrowed the field of taxation. Stamp Act, hardly to be
resumed. Port duties, mischievous. Excises, I believe, he will scarcely
think worth the collection (if any revenue should be so) in America.
Land-tax (notwithstanding his opinion of its immense use to agriculture)
he will not directly propose, before he has thought again and again on
the subject. Indeed he very readily recommends it for Ireland, and
seems to think it not improper for America; because, he observes, they
already raise most of their taxes internally, including this tax. A most
curious reason, truly! because their lands are already heavily burdened,
he thinks it right to burden them still further. But he will recollect,
for surely he cannot be ignorant of it, that the lands of America are
not, as in England, let at a rent certain in money, and therefore
cannot, as here, be taxed at a certain pound rate. They value them in
gross among themselves; and none but themselves in their several
districts can value them. Without their hearty concurrence and
co-operation, it is evident, we cannot advance a step in the assessing
or collecting any land-tax. As to the taxes which in some places the
Americans pay by the acre, they are merely duties of regulation; they
are small; and to increase them, notwithstanding the secret virtues of a
land-tax, would be the most effectual means of preventing that
cultivation they are intended to promote. Besides, the whole country is
heavily in arrear already for land-taxes and quit-rents. They have
different methods of taxation in the different provinces, agreeable to
their several local circumstances. In New England by far the greatest
part of their revenue is raised by _faculty-taxes_ and _