ew articles of consumption, then they
become inefficient, and if they are divided amongst a great many, they
become troublesome, so that either way they are attended with
inconvenience and difficulty.

In every country, where taxation has been carried to a great height, it
has, at last, become necessary to bear heavily upon personal property.
Such taxes are always attended with disagreeable feelings, and
peculiar inconveniency. The tax always comes in the form of a debt,
and whether convenient to be paid or not, it admits at best but of little
delay. {90}

In England the nature of the government, the disposition of the people,
and the same sort of genius that made them succeed in commercial
intercourse and regulation, led them to adopt the least objectionable
modes of taxation.

The customs were the first great branch of revenue at the time of the
revolution. The excise, land-tax, and stamps, rose next, none of which
can be objected to; for the person who pays the tax to government
only advances the money, and is reimbursed by the consumer, who,
again on his part, when he really pays the tax (for good and all) does it
under the form of an advance in price. Thus, then, the tax is disguised
to him that really pays it, and it is optional, inasmuch as he

---
{90} It will be seen, in a future part of this work, that the farmers have
lost nothing, but rather got by the high prices of grain in this country,
and it is so probably in all others. Those who sell necessaries raise the
price; those who make or sell superfluities have no such resource, and
therefore pay in the severest manner.
-=-

[end of page #106]

may avoid the tax, by not consuming the article. He never can be sued
for the tax, and he pays it by degrees, as he can spare the money. {91}

Some time before the taxation which the American war rendered
necessary, it was thought that the customs and excise could not be
carried much farther. Ministers did not chuse =sic= to venture on an
additional tax on land, and, consequently, stamps were augmented and
extended, as were also duties on windows. A variety of new taxes on
particular articles of consumption were resorted to. Those sort of taxes
harassed and tormented individuals more than they filled the treasury,
yet still, when, after an interval of a few years of peace, new burthens
became necessary, in 1793, the same plan was pursued, till it was
found ineffectual, being too troublesome and tedious, besid