Four tracts, on political and commercial subjects

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128 POLITICAL AND COMMERClAL dantly able, were you but truly willing to pay this Tax. For how, and in what Manner do you prove your Allegations? Why truly, by SUBJECTS. 129 and not all exceffive; " It may neverthelefs can caufe Trade to fiagnate, and Induf'try to ‘" be laid on very unleafonably -, it may be " wrong-timed, and ill-digefted." Now, here I muf‘t own, that I am fomewhat at :1 Lots how to anl‘wer you, becaufel am not quite certain that I underlland your Meaning. ceafe. And is this the Method which you have If, for Example, by the Tern ill digrflcd, you breaking forth into Riots and Inforrec‘lions, and by committing every Kind of Violence, that chofen to purfue, in order to make the World would infinuate, that the flmerz'can Stamp Duty believe, that you are a poor People 9 Is this the 'would grind the Faces of the Poor, and permit Proof you bring, that the Stamp Duty is a the Rich to efcape;~~ that it would affect the Burthen too heavy for you to bear? Surely, if you had really intended our Convic‘lion, you Neceflitries, and not the Superfiuities of Life; --that it would prevent the Building of Houfes, would have chofen fome other Medium: And were your Inability or Poverty the fingle Point or the Clearing of Lands, or the Cultivation of Ellates already cleared ;-~-or laflly, that it would diminifh the Number of your Shipping, or flop in Qieltion, you would not have taken to fuch Courfes, as mull infalliby render you fiill the poorer. For in faét, if, after all your Complaints of Poverty, you can {till afford to idle away your Time, and to walle Days, and Weeks, in Cottages and Uproars; what elfe do you prove, but that you are a prodigal, and extravagant People? For you mull acknowledge, that if but Half of this Time were fpent, as it ought to be, in honel't lndul'try and ufeful Labour, it would have been more than fulficient to have paid double the Tax which is now required. BUT you will {till fay, that though the Tax may be allowed (nay indeed it mull be allowed) to be very moderate, every Thing confideredé an the Pay of your Sailors: If there, or any of thefe are the Evils, which you would lay to the Charge of the Stamp Duty, nothing upon Earth could be a falter Charge; and you could not give a {lronger Proof either of your Detect in Judgement, or Want oflntegritry, than by ut- tering fuch Allertions as thefe;-- Aflertions, which both daily Experience and the Nature of Things evidently demonfirate to be void of Truth. we in Britain ha 1e been {object to a Stamp Duty formany, very many Years; 3 DUtY much higher than that which is intended for dazerira, and yet we know by long Experience, that it hath not been attended with any of the dreadful Confequences which are here fuppofed. 1 AGAIN,