2 LIST OF THE INHABITANTS OF MELBOURNE, 1695. 
and burials, as well as on bachelors and widowers. A copy of the 
assessment was returned into the Exchequer, and this return 
must obviously contain the precise information which the historian 
required. Whether this important contribution to the history of 
the English people was “ pulped” in a generation which did not 
recognise its value, or whether it is still lying unconsulted in the 
recesses of the Record Office, has still to be ascertained. But, 
however this may be, it is evident that full materials for a census 
of the population in the last decade of the seventeenth century 
were once in existence ; and if they are not now forthcoming, the 
fault lies not with our ancestors, but with those who have 
neglected to preserve or consult them. 
The Taxation Act, under which these lists were framed, was 
a novel experiment in legislation, which excited so much dis- 
content in every class in the community, that it ought not to be 
ignored (as it is) in Macaulay’s history of the period. The 
King’s ministers were pressed for ways and means in 1694, and, 
amongst other expedients for replenishing the exhausted exchequer, 
an Act was passed “as an additional supply for carrying on the 
war against France with vigour,” which imposed, for a term of 
five years, from 1st May, 1695, a graduated scale of duties upon 
marriages, births, and burials, and upon bachelors and widowers. 
No one was exempt from these duties, except persons in receipt 
of alms. The amount of the tax was 4s. for every burial, 2s. 
for every birth, and 2s. 6d. for every marriage; but, besides this, 
bachelors above twenty years of age, and widowers without chil- 
dren, paid 1s. a year as long as they remained unmarried. These 
amounts were to be paid in every case ; but in every rank, except 
the lowest, there was a further tax, which varied with the rank of 
the parties. These additions were levied according to the follow- 
ing scale :— 
For burial For birth 
Rank and quality. and _ of eldest For birth of — Bachelors or 
marriage. son. younger child. widowers. 
DGG ycree dy ak yiaas exe 5Oy LRG, 100 EG 25 Ow son i gee 
MAQUI S21) ecg nace nO 256 20°) 0.0 10. One 
Hatls.. isk vide ne@ela ae 20 0 [50 On 20 8 6 te 
