armies must be provided; to support domestic peace, to adminifter diftributive juftice, and to regulate the police of cities and diftricts, civil officers of various ranks and denominations are to be maintained and remunerated: And confiderable funds will be required for the encouragement of science, the advancement of arts, and the extenfion of commerce. Thus multiplied and complicated are the just and neceffary charges of government.

The moral obligation to pay taxes refults from the ALLEGIANCE due to the fovereign power, for the PROTECTION which it affords to life, liberty and property; and for the energy which it exerts in the promotion of order, industry, virtue and happiness.

This obligation is common to the fubjects of every government; but under the happy conftitution of Great Britain, where fubfidies are never claimed by the fupreme magiftrate, without the confent of parliament, we become bound, by a VOLUNTARY COMPACT, made by our delegates, to contribute to the public exigencies, in fuch proportions, and according to fuch modes, as they have deliberately enacted.

And, by the refusal to grant fuch contributions, or by the evasion of them, we not only injure the public weal, but, indirectly, INVADE the PROPERTY of our FELLOW-CITIZENS, who must bear the bur

den of additional impofts, in confequence of our contumacious exemption.

The validity of these several obligations is equally clear and forcible. And as man is destined, by his intellectual powers and moral propenfities, no less than by his wants and weaknesses, for a state of society, the obligations are not merely voluntary, or of pofitive inftitution; but, fo far as they are effential to that focial ftate, originate in the law of nature, which can be deemed no other than the will of God. Yet, though government, in this fenfe, is of divine authority, it is fo conftituted by its adaption to the interefts and felicity of its fubjects. The rights of the people, therefore, are not only antecedent to, but included in those of the magiftrate; and, confequently, there can never subsist a legitimate competition between them. Yet the hiftory of the world is one continued series of fuch competitions; and experience hath fully evinced, that they have generally sprung from the arrogance, the ambition and the defpotifm of rulers. To vindicate the facred and unalienable rights of the people is, in reality, to fubferve the true ends of government. A good citizen, under every legal, equitable, and well administered polity, with duty and gratitude, will render unto Cæfar the things that are Cæfar's: But the decifion, concerning the things that are Cafar's, refts not on the unftable foundation of arbitrary will; and the appeal may, with confidence, be

made

made to the principles of reafon, of justice, and of patriotism. On these principles, I fhall endeavor to explain the limits of the feveral moral obligations, laid down in the three foregoing propofitions. (A)

I. ALLEGIANCE is due for the PROTECTION of the fovereign power. But protection may be paid for at too high a rate. For, in every convention, a juft proportion fhould be preserved, between the price and the value of the commodity. "If, "to purchase a fword for my defence against a " thief, I must empty my purse, interest will lead "me rather to make a compofition with the plun"derer; or prudence will dictate fome other lefs "chargeable means of fecurity."+ Lord Herbert of Cherbury relates, in his travels through Savoy, that "though the Duke had put extreme taxations " on his people, infomuch that they paid him "not only a certain fum for every horfe, cow, ox, "or fheep that they kept; but afterwards for "every chimney; and, finally, every person by "the pole, which amounted to a pistole or four"teen fhillings a head or perfon, yet he wanted money: At which I did not fo much wonder, "as at the patience of his fubjects." After the

The capitals refer to the notes in the appendix, which is placed at the end of the volume.

+ Abbé Raynal.

↑ Life of Lord Herbert.
B 3

cruel

cruel expulfion of the Moors from Spain, by which that kingdom was deprived of more than half a million of industrious inhabitants, new contributions were imposed on the poor and indolent natives, to supply the unavoidable, though unexpected deficiency of the royal revenue, refulting from that impolitic measure. This fertile country has indeed been defolated by the oppreffive laws, and rapacious exactions of its government. The number of the people has been reduced, within the space of a few centuries, from twenty to seven millions; and the produce of corn, formerly furnishing, not only a full fupply for internal confumption, but also a large exportation to other parts of Europe, is now infufficient for its own diminished population. Every manufacture, and even neceffary of life, is charged with an impoft of fourteen per cent. on the firft, which is repeated on each fubfequent, fale. Philip II. attempted to lay the fame burthenfome duty on his fubjects in the Netherlands; and the attempt, it is well known, was one principal caufe of the glorious revolution, which freed the United Provinces from his tyranny.

Protection may be very unduly or unequally dispensed; and the ordinary benefits of the focial union not participated, in any reasonable degree, by the bulk of the community. Great lords may

Lord Kaims.

be

be suffered to tyrannize over their tenants or vaffals, whilft the country is, at the fame time, made a prison to its inhabitants, by the fevereft prohibitions of emigration. At the beginning of the fixteenth century, there fubfifted, in Ruffia, no other flaves, except prifoners of war. A new arrangement took place after the conquest of Cafan and Aftracan. Thefe beautiful and fertile pro

vinces fo powerfully attracted the peasantry, that a rigorous law enfued, in 1556, which confined them all to their own glebe. And they were thus at once divested of property and personal liberty. Similar revolutions have occurred in the other northern states, and the confequences have been penury, wretchednefs, and a degradation of the human fpecies. In France, the tax called the Taille, used to be levied on men, who, being without any other property than their neceffary utenfils, and fubfifting folely on their daily wages, could not be compelled to payment, even by violence itself. Every collector, who was conftrained to undertake the levy of the tax, had authority to call upon the four persons in the dif trict, whose proportion of the TAILLE was the greateft, to fill up all deficiencies; and they were thus forced, by the fale of their effects, or by imprisonment, to expiate the negligence of the collector or the poverty of their neighbors; not