Travels Through North America 



a very hard one; and I doubt whether, upon prin- 

 ciples of free government, it can be justified; or 

 whether the assembly can legally interpose any 

 farther, than, in cases of necessity, to oblige the 

 clergy to receive their salaries in money instead of 

 tobacco, at the current price of tobacco. They may, 

 I am persuaded, in cases of exigency, always make, 

 and might then have made, such a law, without any 

 considerable detriment to the colony: for, supposing 

 the price of tobacco to be, what it was at that time, 

 about fifty shillings currency per hundred, what 

 would the whole sum be, were the clergy to be paid 

 ad valorem ? Not 20,200 1. sterling. There are in 

 Virginia, as I observed before, about sixty-five 

 clergymen; each of these is allowed 16,000 weight 

 of tobacco; which, at the rate of fifty shillings cur- 

 rency per hundred, amounts to 400 1.; 400 1. mul- 

 tiplied by 65, is equal to 26,000; which, allowing 40 

 per cent, discount, the difference of exchange, is 

 about 18,571 1. sterling. Now what is this sum to 

 such a colony as Virginia ? But to this it will be 

 said, perhaps, why should the clergy be gainers in a 

 time of public distress, when every one else is a suf- 

 ferer? The clergy will doubtless reply, and why 

 should the clergy be the only sufferers in plentiful 

 seasons, when all but themselves are gainers ? 

 However, as on the one hand I disapprove of the 

 proceedings of the assembly in this affair; so, on the 

 other, I cannot approve of the steps which were taken 



[50] 



