Travels Through North America 



mine, but their success has not answered their ex- 

 pectations. 



The taxes of this colony are considerable, and the 

 public debt amounts to at least 400,000 1. currency; 

 this they have been driven into by the war, having 

 seldom had less than a thousand or fifteen hundred 

 provincial troops in pay, exclusive of the expenses 

 of some forts. The ways and means employed for 

 raising the money have been generally the same: 

 they have first made an emission of so much paper 

 currency as the exigency required, and then laid a 

 tax for sinking it. This tax has been commonly 

 upon lands and negroes, two shillings for every 

 titheable; and a shilling or eighteen-pence upon 

 every hundred acres of land. This mode of taxa- 

 tion has occasioned some divisions in the house; for 

 the owners of large tracts being unable, perhaps, to 

 cultivate a tenth part of their possessions, and every 

 man's real income arising from the number of his 

 negroes, have thought it very hard to pay a tax for 

 what they pretend is of no value to them : but much 

 better arguments may undoubtedly be urged in sup- 

 port of the tax than against it. 



The taxes for the present debt are laid till the 

 year sixty-nine, when the whole, if they add nothing 

 more to it, will be discharged. The use of paper 

 currency in this colony has entirely banished from 

 it gold and silver. Indeed, the introduction of it 

 was certain in time to produce this effect; but lest 



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