292 on the coal duties in Scotland. Dees a6;- 
them with ail pofsible severity; yet in spite of all that 
sjueezing and opprefsion, the total revenue raised from 
them does not amount to ten fhillings a-head. France 
was also loaded with severe taxes, and the people, compara- 
tively with some other natiens, were poor; and they never 
afforded a revenue, exceeding on an average of the whole 
kingdom, fifteen fhillings a-head. Britain is in circum. 
stances greatly more prosperous than either of these 
countries; and fhe affords a revenue of about forty fhillings 
a-head: and Holland, still more wealthy, taking its whole 
extent, than Britain, pays, of pubdlic taxes, to the amount 
of more than L.3 a-head. The proportional revenue,. 
therefore, yielded by a state, is indeed a much clearer 
indication of the riches or poverty of its people, and the 
general prosperity of the nation, than any thing else. 
I do not say that taxes can never be burdensome or: 
opprefsive to the people; for well I know that this may: 
be the case; but that, when they are opprefsive, they. 
become in general unproductive also: I do not say, that: 
if taxes are burdensome and opprefsive, they will not 
tend to make a people poor; but that if the people are 
poor, the amount of the revenue produced by. these 
taxes will be proportionally insignificant; Ido not say, 
that if taxes are high, and the sums of money levied from 
the people great, this will be a cause of wealth 3 but only. 
that it will be a certain zadication that they are wealthy, 
I beg these distinctions may be adverted to.. ; 
From general, let us proceed to particular facts. The 
total amount of revenue drawn from the city of London, 
considered by itself, is upwards of L.1o a-head of all its 
inhabitants; while the average of duties paid all over 
Scotland does not amount to fifteen fhillings for each 
person, But will any one pretend to say, that the people 
