32 On the Malt Tax. Fnh. 



tax should be general over tlie island; though the Seotcli mem- 

 bers made a most strenuous opposition, and were supported by 

 tlie most respectable characters in England. 



This unfair procedure raised the greatest ferment in Scot- 

 land, and was one of the secondary causes of the rebellion which 

 broke out next year. The farmers and others who made their 

 bear into malt, refused to give notice to the excise officers, and 

 even to oraiit them admission into their barns : the justices of 

 the peace refused to act, and the whole amount of this high no- 

 minal tax did not, in many cases, pay the expence of collect- 

 ing it. The clergy, who, by a declaratory act of the Scotch 



' pa'cliament, were exempted from all taxes on their stipends, and 

 on the produGe of their glebes, and who liad never been char- 

 ged for any malt tax before, in order to allay the ferment, step- 

 ped forward .voluntarilj', and paid small sums of money for the 

 malt used in their families ; and, in some instances, ^iiey suc- 



' ceeded in quieting the minds of tlie people: In others, they were 

 considered as betra_ying the interests of Scotland, for fear of en- 

 dangering the Hanoverian succession, or their own ecclesiastical 

 establishment. Now tiiat the spirit of party has subsided, it 

 will not admit of a doubt, that the malt tax of 1713 was un- 

 just and oppressive with regard to ScotJand ; and tliough it was 

 said, in the 14th article of the treaty of union, that it was not 

 to be supposed that tlie parliament of Great Britain would lay 

 on any burdens but with due regard to the circumstances and 

 abilities of every part of the united kingdom^ ; yet, in six years 

 after the rnion, the British parliament did actually impose a 

 heavy burden upon Scotland, Tt'?VZ;o?/z' any regard to the circiun" 

 stances of the case, viz. the inferiority of Scotch grain, or the 

 ability of the people^ in that part of the united kingdom, to pay 

 a tax, which in several places was nearly equal to the value of 

 the raw article f . 



The rebellion in 171 4 and 1715, wlvXo, it put an end to the 

 hopes of tlie Pretender, also destroyed the influence of tlie To- 

 ries, who were rather unfairly confounded with the Jacobites, 

 Therefore, when the annual malt tax was imposed in 1725, all 

 that had been pi-onvised at the negociating of the union on the 

 part of England was honourably fiilliiled; and the British 

 parliament, witliout any opposition, enacted, that Scotland 

 should pLi)^ only 3d. while England paid 6d. on the busliel of 

 malt. By thij means, though Scotland did not obtain a total 

 exemption from the malt tax, and get the whole duty imposed 

 upon the malt liquor, it was now charged with only a reason- 

 able proportion of the malt duty. And it was agreed, that all 



the 



f The price of bear in Aberdeenshire, by the fiars of the county 

 for 17 I2,,wa5 jr.. per Aberdeen bolJ, of 6-j- bui;hcis, or di. per quarter. 



