ent, from the commencement of the war, according to some
computations, had levied, in five years, above forty millions;[*] yet
were loaded with debts and incumbrances, which, during that age, were
regarded as prodigious. If these computations should be thought much
exaggerated, as they probably are,[**] the taxes and impositions were
certainly far higher than in any former state of the English government;
and such popular exaggerations are at least a proof of popular
discontents.

* Clement Walker's History of the two Juntos, prefixed to
his History of Independency, p. 8. This is an author of
spirit and ingenuity; and being a zealous parliamentarian,
his authority is very considerable, notwithstanding the air
of satire which prevails in his writings. This computation,
however, seems much too large; especially as the
sequestrations during the time of war could not be so
considerable as afterwards.

* Yet the same sum precisely is assigned in another book,
called Royal Treasury of England, p. 297.

But the disposal of this money was no less the object of general
complaint against the parliament than the levying of it. The sum of
three hundred thousand pounds they openly took, it is affirmed,[*] and
divided among their own members. The committees, to whom the management
of the different branches of revenue was intrusted, never brought in
their accounts, and had unlimited power of secreting whatever sums they
pleased from the public treasure.[**] These branches were needlessly
multiplied, in order to render the revenue more intricate, to share the
advantages among greater numbers, and to conceal the frauds of which
they were universally suspected.[***]

The method of keeping accounts practised in the exchequer, was
confessedly the exactest, the most ancient, the best known, and the
least liable to fraud. The exchequer was for that reason abolished, and
the revenue put under the management of a committee, who were subject to
no control.[****]

The excise was an odious tax, formerly unknown to the nation; and was
now extended over provisions, and the common necessaries of life. Near
one half of the goods and chattels, and at least one half of the lands,
rents, and revenues of the kingdom, had been sequestered. To great
numbers of loyalists, all redress from these sequestrations was
refused: to the rest, the remedy could be obtained only by paying large
compositions, and