An appeal to the landholders concerning the reasonableness and general benefit of an excise upon tobacco and wine.

Date:
1733
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An appeal to the landholders concerning the reasonableness and general benefit of an excise upon tobacco and wine. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/44 (page 5)
    Nation fhould be unpopulaf, and that Millions ihould continue burthened and diftrelTed, rathe/ than Particulars be obliged to comply with Law and Confcience. For, by Law and Conrcience, Tea, Coffee, and ChoGolate, ought to have paid as much to the Revenue when under the Cuf- toms, as they have done fiiiGe under the Excife 5 yet they paid not then above one Half of what they pay now. So that what Confcience and Oaths and for¬ mer Laws could not effed, another Law and a different Regulation have accomplifhed. This new Regulation was therefore a Cure for the Arts and Frauds ufed in thefe Commodities, and, when applied to Tobacco and Wine, will in all Pro¬ bability produce the fame good Effed, and a double Revenue. So that the ^'Nation will be profited and eafed without aggrieving Particu¬ lars, unlefs the Cure of Frauds and of Corrup¬ tion and Perjury be a Grievance. Yet this is fuch a Grievance to fome, that, to prevent it, they have, by Arts and Mifreprefentations, and O utcries of Oppreflibn, influenced and inflamed not only many who were themfelves ' innocent, but the Multitude in general, and pofieffed them with ftrange Fears of General E^cifes and Slavery; as if the reftraining of a few Knaves were Matter of Oppreflion to ail Men, when by it all Men were to be benefited and relieved ; as if it were Slavery to be under a Prohibition to cheat; and a furer Method of colleding the fame Duty upon two fingle Commodities were a General Exetfe. 2 To