obliged to pay an enormous duty of eight fhillings per barrel. I have already acquainted my readers, that, by a calculation which has been made, every poor hard-working man in this great metropolis, take them one with another, drinks four quarts of beer a day. He pays therefore to the government for this fingle article of beer, no lefs a fum than FOUR POUNDS per ann. befides an additional sum of ONE POUND TEN SHILLINGS, and FIVE PENCE a year, extorted from him by the brewer and victular together, who doubled the additional tax that was laid by the great Commoner upon this article. What an enormous fum is this to fqueeze out of the labour of the poor and indigent part of mankind! and how much reafon has the beer-drinker to complain of oppreffion, when he reflects upon his fellow fubjects who were fo fortunate as to be born in the cyder-counties, have their common drink not only free from excife, but, by this new regulation of the cyder-bill, free from duty too, while he, poor wretch, is obliged to pay above FIVE POUNDS TEN SHILLINGS A YEAR DUTY, for his common beverage! Where were the R of the beer counties; where were the M of the city of London, when this partial and unjuft regulation was fuffered to pafs? Cyder is the common drink in the feveral counties where it is made; it is their smallbeer, porter, ale, and wine: is it juft, is it reafonaable, that five or fix hundred thousand perfons fhould be exempt from all duty in these several articles, while the reft of the kingdom cannot touch one of them, without paying an extravagant impofitiom? what aggravates the diftress of the beer counties ftill further is, that even the cyder tax itfelf is now laid upon them: the maker of cyder pays no duty; and in the feveral cyder counties almost all the houfe-keepers are makers; confequently they drink their cyder, duty free;-while the poor

beer

beer drinker, if he has a mind for a glafs of cyder, is obliged to pay a duty, for he has no opportunity of making it. Is not this a fcandalous impofition upon the beer counties? and is it not incumbent on the several inhabitants of them, to draw up the strongest petitions and remonftrances to their reprefentatives, to procure them relief from fuch partiality and oppreffion?

A CONSTITUTIONALIST.

Additional Tax upon WINDOWS confidered, April 1766. F all the taxes with which this unhappy na

OF

tion is burthened, that on windows is the moft abfurd and the most unnatural To extend it, is to extend thofe abfurdities with which it is fraught; and to increase it, is mocking our miseries and hiffing at our calamities.

Every tax on property ought to bear fome proportion to the property from which it is levied. The most valuable property ought to be moft burthened, and the poffeffor of the lefs valuable fubject fhould be decreed to make a less payment to the public. But in this tax every rule of propriety is tranfgreffed, every appointment of equity defpifed. What would we fay of the excife on malt liquors, if a gallon of fmall beer paid as much as a gallon of porter? And what of the land tax, if it was laid on by the number of acres, without other confideration? Yet the fame incongruity is visible in the tax on windows; for every houfe, be its locality where it will, confifting of feven windows, is equally taxed, without taking in any other confiderations, although, perhaps, no two things in nature are more different in value and produce, to the poffeffor a more different income or advantage, whether that income is confidered as confifting in fplendor or conveniency, or any other folid benefit.

The

The diftinguishing value of most houses, we all know, arifes from their different fituations. Hardly any two fields confifting of the fame number of acres differ more in value from each other than two houses of the fame number of windows in different fituations. A houfe of feven or ten windows at, or within one hundred yards of the Exchange of London, is as much (if not more) different in value from a houfe of feven or ten windows in fome parts of Northumberland, as the richest field of feven or ten acres in Middlefex, differs in value from the worft field of the fame extent in Norfolk or Cumberland. And in the fame city, town or borough, nay in the fame quarter of the fame city, a different locality gives a different value to a house whofe number of windows is the fame. The intereft of every poffeffor, in the house he holds, is his property in that house, and is more or lefs valuable to him according to the advantages or disadvantages attendant on its fituation, dimenfions, and many other circumstances; yet all this just reafoning is over-looked in the collection of the window tax; and the fame duties are every where levied from houfes having the fame number of windows, to the indelible difgrace of our national justice. Can any abfurdity be greater, than to collect for the ufe of the public the fame duties from objects of fo very different values? To plan the railing of taxes in this manner is to plan the establishment of iniquity by a law; and to plan the increase of a tax of this fort is, in effect, to plan the enlargement of injuftice.

To this unexceptionable argument against the tax on windows, or an extenfion of that tax, it may probably be answered, that the fums levied by this tax are fo trifling, that neither the inequalities above taken notice of, nor any other that may be figured, merit confideration; that if every circum

ftance

ftance was in this cafe to be minutely confidered, the trouble and expence of reducing all thofe differences to a nice equation would much exceed the profits accruing to the public from the tax in queftion; for it often happens, that houfes of the fame number of windows, closely adjoining to each other, differ greatly in value from each other, efpecially if one of them fronts a great street or an accustomed thoroughfare, and the other ftands in a more retired fituation, fecreted from view and opportunities of commerce; that thofe varieties of circumftances which alter the value of houses of the fame number of windows, both in town and country are fo numerous, that it is hardly poffible to pay a juft attention to them all, and that for this reafon; because there is no other way of eluding an infinity of contests which never could be ended. The most eligible method in this affair, is that already fixed on, which is to compel the fame payment from all houses of the fame number of windows, after an allowance of fome of fmall dimenfions with few windows for the habitation of the poor.

A very concife anfwer, indeed, in behalf of an 'injurious tax. But, doth not the whole of this fine story amount to this plain affertion, That the injuftice obfervable in planning this tax, ought to be over-looked, either because the iniquity, though general, yet very little hurts each dividual, or because it would take a great deal of trouble to rectify it? And is not that argument easily refuted? Have those who reafon in this manner forgot that the obfervation of the invariable laws of juftice is never to be neglected on any account whatever? That the correction of general iniquity can never, in any cafe, be confidered as an unimportant object? That the diftribution of justice is the fole, as well as the main end of government?

That

That every government, where this great object of fociety is neglected, deviates into tyranny? That the profpect of obtaining one common protection for property, on payment of taxes proportioned to its value in the hands of the poffeffor, is the great inducement which engages mankind to fubmit to be ruled by their equals, and that to difappoint this hope is a moft open attack on the fafety of mankind in an affociated state. Who has a legal power to compel fubmiffion to injustice? The law of nations forbids iniquity of every fort; and certain I am, that no man is authorifed by any law, exprefsly revealed or implied in nature, to commit injuftice. A right to do wrong cannot exift. Is it impracticable to levy this tax on houses without tranfgreffing the invariable laws of juftice? If fo, it ought to be difcarded. The inviolable laws of juftice are not to be bent in order to gratify the avarice or ignorance of arbitrary ministers. It is alfo evident, that nature, as well as juftice, revolts against the conftitution or extenfion of this tax. The Sun freely difpenfes his light and heat to all creatures. The air, by the difpofition of the Author of Nature, animates all living beings. Who then can rightfully intercept these bleffings of Providence from another, or compel him to pay for what nature freely gives for the fupport of all creatures? Who can deprive us of the cheering cffects of light, the folar heat and air? Or who can make us pay for what we cannot be lawfully deprived of? Muft we turn fuicides by depriving ourfelves of the falubrity of the air, or pay for that principle of life which Heaven difpenfes to all breathing creatures? According to this law we muft exclude the enlivening breeze from our dwelling places, and convert our chambers into unhealthy, as well as dark caves, or pay to man for what man cannot lawfully take from us; we must