 CHAPTER VIII. Having, in the preceding chapter, considered at large those branches of the king's prerogative, which contribute to his royal dignity, and constitute the executive power of the government, we proceed now to examine the king's fiscal prerogatives, or such as regard his revenue, which the British constitution hath vested in the royal person, in order to support his dignity and maintain his power, being a portion which each subject contributes of his property, in order to secure the remainder. This revenue is either ordinary or extraordinary. The king's ordinary revenue is such as has either subsisted time out of mind in the crown, or else has been granted by Parliament by way of purchase or exchange for such of the king's inherent hereditary revenues, as were found inconvenient to the subject. When I say that it has subsisted time out of mind in the crown, I do not mean that the king is at present in the actual possession of the whole of this revenue. Much, nay, the greatest part of it is at this day in the hands of subjects, to whom it has been granted out from time to time by the kings of England, which has rendered the crown in some measure dependent on the people for its ordinary support and subsistence. So that I must be obliged to recount, as part of the royal revenue, what lords of manners and other subjects frequently look upon to be their own absolute rights, because they are and have been vested in them and their ancestors for ages, though in reality originally derived from the grants of our ancient princes. 1. The first of the king's ordinary revenues, which I shall take notice of, is of an ecclesiastical kind, as are also the three succeeding ones, vis the custody of the temporalities of the ships, by which are meant all the lay revenues, lands, and tenements, in which is included his barony, which belong to an archbishop's or bishop's sea. And these, upon the vacancy of the bishopric, are immediately the right of the king, as a consequence of his prerogative in church matters, whereby he is considered as the founder of all archbishoprics and bishoprics, to whom, during the vacancy, they revert. And for the same reason, before the dissolution of abbeys, the king had the custody of the temporalities of all such abbeys and priories, as were of royal foundation, but not of those founded by subjects, on the death of the abbot or prior. Another reason may also be given, why the policy of the law hath vested this custody in the king, because, as the successor is not known, the lands and possessions of the sea would be liable to spoil and devastation, if no one had a property therein. Therefore, the law has given the king not the temporalities themselves, but the custody of the temporalities, till such time as the successor is appointed, with power of taking to himself all the immediate profits, without any account to the successor, and with the right of presenting, which the crown very frequently exercises, to such beneficies in other performance as fall within the time of vacation. This revenue is of so high a nature that it could not be granted out to a subject, before or even after it accrued. But now, by the statute 14th Edward III, statute IV, C. IV and V, the king may, after the vacancy, lease the temporalities to the dean in chapter, saving to himself of all the vowsons asheets and the like. Our ancient kings, and particularly William Rufus, were not only remarkable for keeping the bishoprics a long time vacant, for the sake of enjoying the temporalities, but also committed to horrible waste on the woods and other parts of the estate, and a crown all would never, when the sea was filled up, restore to the bishop his temporalities again, unless he purchased them at an exorbitant price. To remedy which, King Henry I granted a charter at the beginning of his reign, promising neither to sell nor let to farm, nor take anything from the domains of the church, till the successor was installed. And it was made one of the articles of the great charter, that no waste should be committed in the temporalities of bishoprics, neither should the custody of them be sold. The same is ordained by the statute of Westminster I, and the statute 14th Edward III, statute IV, C. IV, which permits, as we have seen, a lease to the dean in chapter, is still more explicit in prohibiting the other exactions. It was also a frequent abuse that the king would, for trifling, or no causes, seize the temporalities of bishops even during their lives, into his own hands, but this is guarded against by statute I, Edward III, statute II, C. II. This revenue of the king, which was formerly very considerable, is now by a customary indulgence almost reduced to nothing. For at present, as soon as the new bishop is consecrated and confirmed, he usually receives the restitution of his temporalities quite entire and untouched, from the king. And then, and not sooner, he has a fee simple in his bishopric, and may maintain an action for the same. II. The king is entitled to a courty, as the law calls it, out of every bishopric, that is, to send one of his chaplains to be maintained by the bishop, or to have a penchant allowed him till the bishop promotes him to a benefit. This is also in the nature of an acknowledgment to the king, as founder of the sea, since he had formerly the same courty or penchant from every abbey or priory of royal foundation. It is, I apprehend, now fallen into total disuse, though Sir Matthew Hale says that it is due of common right, and that no prescription will discharge it. III. The king, as was formerly observed, is entitled to all the tithes arising in extroperocular places, though perhaps it may be doubted how far this article, as well as the last, can be properly reckoned a part of the king's own royal revenue, since a courty supports only his chaplains, and these extroperocular tithes are held under an implied trust that the king will distribute them for the good of the clergy in general. IV. The next branch consists in the firstfruits, and tenths, of all spiritual performance in the kingdom, both of which I shall consider together. These were originally a part of the papal usurpations over the clergy of this kingdom. First introduced by Pundolf the pope's legate, during the reigns of King John and Henry III in the Sea of Norwich, and afterwards attempted to be made universal by the popes Clement V and John XXII, about the beginning of the fourteenth century. The firstfruits, Primichet or Annits, were the first year's whole prophets of the spiritual performant, according to a rate or valor made under the direction of Pope Innocent IV, by Walter, Bishop of Norwich, in 38th Henry III, and afterwards advanced in value by commission from Pope Nicholas III, AD 1292, 20th Edward I, which valuation in Pope Nicholas is still preserved in the Exchequer. The tenths, or decimée, were the tenth part of the annual prophet of each living by the same valuation, which was also claimed by the Holy See, under no better pretense than a strange misapplication of that principle of the Levitical Law, which directs that the Levites should offer the tenth part of their tithe as a heave offering to the Lord, and give it to Aaron the High Priest. But this claim of the pope met with vigorous resistance from the English Parliament, and a variety of acts were passed to prevent and restrain it, particularly the statute VI Henry IV, C. I, which calls it a horrible mischief and damnable custom. But the Popish clergy, blindly devoted to the will of a foreign master, still kept it on foot, sometimes more secretly, sometimes more openly and avowedly, so that in the reign of Henry VIII it was computed that in the compass of fifty years eight hundred thousand ducats had been sent to Rome for first fruits only. And as the clergy expressed this willingness to contribute so much of their income to the head of the church, it was thought proper, when in the same reign the papal power was abolished and the king was declared the head of the church in England, to annex this revenue to the crown, which was done by the statute 26 Henry VIII, C. I, confirmed by the statute I Elizabeth, C. IV, and a new valour-benefic teorum was made, by which the clergy are at present rated. By these last-mentioned statutes all vicarages under ten pounds a year and all rectories under ten marks are discharged from the payment of first fruits, and if in such livings as continue chargeable with this payment the incumbent lives but half a year he shall pay only one quarter of his first fruits, but if one whole year, then half of them, if a year and a half, three quarters, and if two years, then the whole, and not otherwise. Likewise, by the statute 27 Henry VIII, C. VIII, no tens are to be paid for the first year, for then the first fruits are due, and by other statutes of Queen Anne in the fifth and sixth years of her reign, if a benefit be under fifty pounds per annum clear, yearly value, it shall be discharge of the payment of first fruits and tents. Thus the richer clergy, being by the criminal bigotry of their popish predecessors, subjected at first to a foreign exaction, were afterwards, when that yoke was shaken off, liable to a like misapplication of their revenues, through the rapacious disposition of the then reigning monarch, till at length the piety of Queen Anne restored to the church what had been thus indirectly taken from it. This she did not by remitting the tents and first fruits entirely, but in a spirit of truest equity, by applying these superfluities of the larger benefits to make up the deficiencies of the smaller, and to this end she granted her royal charter, which was confirmed by the statute II Anne C. XI, whereby all the revenue of first fruits and tents is vested in trustees forever, to form a perpetual fund for the augmentation of poor livings. This is usually called Queen Anne's Bounty, which has been still farther regulated by subsequent statutes, too numerous here to recite. V. The next branch of the king's ordinary revenue, which, as well as the subsequent branches, is of a lay or temporal nature, consists in the rents and profits of the Desmond lands of the crown. These Dimesan lands, terre dominicalis regis, being either the share reserved to the crown at the original distribution of landed property, or such as came to it afterwards by forpatures who other means, were anciently very large and extensive, comprising diverse manners, honors, and lordships, the tenets of which had very peculiar privileges, as will be shown in the second book of these commentaries, when we speak of the tenure in ancient Dimesan. At present they are contracted within a very narrow compass, having been almost entirely granted away to private subjects. This has occasioned the parliament frequently to interpose, and particularly after King William III had greatly impoverished the crown, an act passed whereby all future grants or leases from the crown, for any longer term than thirty-one years or three lives, are to be declared void, except with regard to houses which may be granted for fifty years. And no reversionary lease can be made, so as to exceed, together with the estate in being, the same term of three lives or thirty-one years, that is, where there is a subsisting lease, of which there are twenty years still to come, the king cannot grant a future interest to commence after the expiration of the former, for any longer term than eleven years. The tenet must also be made liable to be punished for committing waste, and the usual rent must be reserved, or, where there has usually been no rent, one-third of the clear yearly value. The misfortune is that this act was made too late, after almost every valuable possession of the crown had been granted away forever, or else upon very long leases, but may be of benefit to posterity when those leases come to expire. VI. Hither might have been referred the advantages which were used to arise to the king from the prophets of his military tenures, to which most lands in the kingdom were subject till the statute, 12th Charles II, C. 24, which in great measure abolished them all, the explication of the nature of which tenures must be referred to the second book of these commentaries. Hither also might have been referred the profitable prerogative of purveyance and preemption, which was a ride enjoyed by the crown of buying up provisions and other necessaries by the intervention of the king's purveyors, for the use of his royal household at an appraised valuation, in preference to all others, and even without consent of the owner, and also forcibly impressing the carriages and horses of the subject to do the king's business on the public roads, in the conveyance of timber, baggage, and the like, however inconvenient to the proprietor upon paying him a settled price. A prerogative which prevailed pretty generally throughout Europe, during the scarcity of gold and silver, and the high valuation of money consequential thereupon. In those early times the king's household, as well as those of inferior lords, were supported by specific renders of corn and other victuals from the tenants of the respective demesons, and there was also a continual market kept at the palace gate to furnish vians for the royal use. And this answered all purposes in those ages of simplicity, so long as the king's court continued in any certain place. But when it removed from one part of the kingdom to another, as was formerly very frequently done, it was found necessary to send purveyors beforehand, to get together a sufficient quantity of provisions and other necessaries for the household, and lest the usual demand should raise them to an exorbitant price, the powers before mentioned were vested in the purveyors, who, in process of time, very greatly abused their authority, and became a great oppression to the subject, though of little advantage to the crown. Ready money in an open market, when royal residence was more permanent and specie began to be plenty, being found upon experience to be the best preveditor of any. Wherefore, by degrees the power of purveyors have declined, in foreign countries as well as our own, and particularly were abolished in Sweden by Gustavus Adolphus, toward the beginning of the last century. With us in England, having fallen into disuse during the suspension of monarchy, King Charles, at his restoration, consented by the same statute to resign entirely those branches of his revenue and power, for the ease and convenience of his subjects, and the Parliament, in part recompense, settled on him, his heirs, and successors forever, the hereditary excise of fifteen pence per barrel on all beer and ale sold in the kingdom, and a proportionable sum for certain other liquors. So that this hereditary excise, the nature of which shall be farther explained in the subsequent part of this chapter, now forms the sixth branch of his majesty's ordinary revenue. 7. A seventh branch might also be computed to have arisen from wine licenses, or the rents payable to the crown by such persons as are licensed to sell wine by retail throughout England, except in a few privileged places. These were first settled on the crown by the statute 12th Charles II, C. 25, and together with the hereditary excise, made up the equivalent in value for the loss sustained by the prerogative in the abolition of the military tenures, and the right of preemption and purveillance. But this revenue was abolished by the statute 30th George II, C. 19, and an annual sum of upwards of seven thousand pounds per annum, issuing out of the new stamp duties imposed on wine licenses, was settled on the crown in its stead. 8. An eighth branch of the king's ordinary revenue is usually reckoned to consist in the profits arising from his forests. Forests are waste-grounds belonging to the king, replenished with all manner of beasts of chase or vineary, which are under the king's protection, for the sake of his royal recreation and delight. And to that end, and for the preservation of the king's game, there are particular laws, privileges, courts, and officers belonging to the king's forests, all of which will be in their turn explained in the subsequent books of these commentaries. What we are now to consider are only the profits arising to the king from hence, which consist principally in emersements or vines levied for offenses against the forest laws. But as few, if any, courts of this kind for levying emersements have been held since 1632, 8th Charles I, and as from the accounts given of the proceedings in that court by our histories and law-books, nobody would now wish to see them again revived, it is needless, at least in this place, to pursue this inquiry any farther. 9. The profits arising from the king's ordinary courts of justice make a ninth branch of his revenue, and these consist not only in vines imposed upon offenders, forfeitures of recognizances, and emersements levied upon defaulters, but also in certain fees due to the crown in a variety of legal matters, as for setting the great seal to charters, original writs, and other legal proceedings, and for permitting vines to be levied of lands in order to bar entails, or otherwise to ensure their title. As none of these can be done without the immediate intervention of the king, by himself or his officers, the law allows him certain perquisites and profits, as a recompense for the trouble he undertakes for the public. These in process of time have been almost all granted out to private persons, or else appropriated to certain particular uses, so that, though our law proceedings are still loaded with their payment, very little of them is now returned into the king's exchequer, for a part of the whole royal maintenance they were originally intended. All future grants of them, however, by the statute First Anne S. T. II, C. VII, are to endure for no longer time than the prince's life who grants them. 10. A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon, and these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coasts, are the property of the king, on account of their superior excellence. Indeed our ancestors seemed to have entertained a very high notion of the importance of this right, it being the prerogative of the kings of Denmark and the dukes of Normandy, and from one of these it was probably derived to our princes. It is expressly claimed and allowed in the statute de prerogative errages, and the most ancient treatises of law now extant make mention of it, though they seem to have made a distinction between whale and sturgeon, as was incidentally observed in a former chapter. CHAPTER VIII. XI. Another maritime revenue, founded partly upon the same reason, is that of shipwrecks, which are also declared to be the king's property by the same prerogative statute, 17th Edward II, C. XI, and worse so long before at the common law. It is worthy observation how greatly the laws of wrecks has been altered, and the rigor of it gradually softened in favor of the distressed proprietors. Wreck by the ancient common law was where any ship was lost at sea, and the goods or cargo were thrown upon the land, in which case these goods so wrecked were adjudged to belong to the king, for it was held that by the loss of the ship all property was gone out of the original owner. But this was undoubtedly adding sorrow to sorrow, and was consonant neither to reason nor humanity. Wherefore it was first ordained by King Headmy I that if any person escaped alive out of the ship it should be no wreck, and afterwards King Henry II, by his charter, declared that if on the coasts of either England, Pictu, Olaron, or Gascony any ship should be distressed, and either man or beast should escape or be found therein alive the goods should remain to the owners, if they claimed them within three months, but otherwise should be esteemed a wreck and should belong to the king or other lords of the franchise. This was again confirmed, with improvements, by King Richard I, who in the second year of his reign not only established these concessions by ordaining that the owner, if he was shipwrecked and escaped, Omnus rest suus liberus and quietus hubret, but also that if he perished his children or in default of them his brethren and sisters should retain the property, and in default of brother or sister then the goods should remain to the king. And the law, so long after as the reign of Henry III, seems to have been guided by the same equitable provisions. For then, if a dog, for instance, escaped, by which the owner might be discovered, or if any certain mark were set on the goods, by which they might be known again, it was held to be no wreck. And this is certainly most agreeable to reason, the rational claim of the king being only founded upon this, that the true owner cannot be ascertained. But afterwards, in the statute of Westminster I, the law is laid down and more agreeable to the Charter of King Henry II, and upon that statute hath stood the legal doctrine of wrecks to the present time. It enacts that if any live thing escapes, a man, a cat, or a dog, which, as in Bracton, are only put, for examples, in this case, and as it seems, in this case only, it is clearly not a legal wreck. But the sheriff of the county is bound to keep the goods a year in a day, as in France, for one year, agreeably to the maritime laws of Oleran, and in Holland, for a year and a half, that if any man can prove a property in them, either in his own right, or by right of representation, they shall be restored to him without delay. But if no such property be proved within that time, then they shall be the kings. If the goods are of perishable nature, the sheriff may sell them, and the money shall be liable in their stead. This revenue of wrecks is frequently granted out to lords of manors as a royal franchise, and if any one be thus entitled to wrecks in his own land, and the king's goods are wrecked thereon, the king may claim them at any time, even after the year in a day. It is to be observed that in order to constitute a legal wreck, the goods must come to land. If they continue at sea, the law distinguishes them by the barbarous and uncouth appellations of Jetsum, Flotsam, and Ligon. Jetsum is where goods are cast into the sea, and their sink and remain under water. Flotsam is where they continue swimming on the surface of the waves. Ligon is where they are sunk in the sea, but tied to a cork or buoy in order to be found again. These are also the kings, if no owner appears to claim them. But if any owner appears, he is entitled to recover the possession. For even if they be cast overboard, without mark or buoy, in order to lighten the ship, the owner is not by this act of necessity construed to have renounced his property. Much less can things Ligon be supposed to be abandoned, since the owner has done all in his power to assert and retain his property. These three are therefore accounted so far a distinct thing from the former that, by the king's grant to a man of wrecks, things Jetsum, Flotsam, and Ligon were not passed. Wrecks, in their legal acceptation, are at present not very frequent. It rarely happening that every living creature on board perishes, and if any should survive, it is a very great chance, since the improvement of commerce, navigation, and correspondence, but the owner will be able to assert his property within the year and a day limited by law. And in order to preserve this property entire for him, and if possible to prevent wrecks at all, our laws have been made very humane regulations, in a spirit quite opposite to those savage laws which formerly prevailed in all the northern regions of Europe, and a few years ago were still laid to subsist on the coast of the Baltic Sea, permitting the inhabitants to seize on whatever they could get as lawful prize, or, as an author of their own expresses it, in Nafragorum, Missaria, at Calamitate Tumquan Vultures, at Predum Carrere. For by the statute, 2 Edward III, C. XIII, if any ship be lost on the shore, and the goods come to land, so as it be not legal wreck, they shall be presently delivered to the merchants, by paying only a reasonable reward to those that saved and preserved them, which is entitled salvage. And by the common law, if any persons, other than the sheriff, take any goods so cast on shore, which are not legal wreck, the owners might have a commission to inquire and find them out, and compel them to make restitution. And by statute 12 and 2, C. 18, confirmed by 4th George I, C. 12, in order to assist the distressed, and prevent the scandalous illegal practices on some of our sea-coats, too similar to those on the Baltic, it is enacted that all head officers and others of towns near the sea shall, upon application made to them, summon as many hands as are necessary, and send them to the relief of any ship in distress, on forfeiture of one thousand pounds. And in case of assistance given, salvage shall be paid by the owners, to be assured by three neighboring justices. All persons that secret any goods shall forfeit their treble value, and if they willfully do any act whereby the ship is lost or destroyed, by making holes in her, stealing her pumps or otherwise, they are guilty of felony, without benefit of clergy. Only by the statute 26th George II, C. 19, plundering any vessel either in distress or wrecked, and whether any living creature be on board or not, for, whether wreck or otherwise, it is clearly not the property of the populace. Such plundering, I say, or preventing the escape of any person that endeavors to save his life, or wounding him with intent to destroy him, or putting out false lights in order to bring any vessel into danger, are all declared to be capital felonies, in like manner as the destroying trees, steeples, or other stated sea-marks is punishable by the statute 8th Elizabeth C. 13, with a forfeiture of two thousand pounds. Moreover, by the statute of George II, pilfering any goods cast ashore is declared to be petty larceny, and many other salutary regulations are made for the more effectual preserving ships of any nation in distress. A twelfth branch of the royal revenue, the rite to mines, has its original from the king's prerogative of coinage, in order to supply him with materials, and therefore those mines which are properly royal, and of which the king is entitled, when found, are only those of silver and golds. By the old common law, if gold or silver be found in mines of base metal, according to the opinion of some of the whole was a royal mine, and belonging to the king, though others held that it only did so if the quantity of gold or silver was of greater value than the quantity of base metal. But now, by the statutes 1st William and Mary I, C. 30, and 5th William and Mary, C. 6, this difference is made in material. It being enacted that no mines of copper, tin, iron, or lead shall be looked upon as royal mines, not withstanding gold or silver may be extracted from them in any quantities, but that the king, or persons claiming royal mines under his authority, may have the ore, other than tin ore in the counties of Devon and Cornwall, paying for the same a price stated in the Act. This was an extremely reasonable law, for now private owners are not discouraged from working mines, through a fear that they may be claimed as royal ones. Neither does the king depart from the just rights of his revenue, since he may have all the precious metal contained in the ore, paying no more for it than the value of the base metal which it is supposed to be, to which base metal the land owner is by reason and law entitled. 13. To the same original may in part be referred the revenue of treasure-trove, derived from the French word trivet to find, called in Latin thesaurus inventus, which is, where any money or coin, gold, silver, plate, or bullion is found hidden in the earth, or other private place, the owner thereof being unknown, in which case the treasure belongs to the king. But if he that hid it be known, or afterwards found out, the owner and not the king is entitled to it. Also if it be found in the sea or upon the earth, it doth not belong to the king, but the finder, if no owner appears. So that it seems it is the hiding, not the abandoning of it, that gives the king a property. Braxton defining it in the words of the civilians to be Vestus depositio pecune. This difference clearly arises from the different intentions, which the law implies in the owner. 14. A man that hides his treasure in a secret place evidently does not mean to relinquish his property, but reserves the right of claiming it again, when he sees occasion, and if he dies and the secret also dies with him, the law gives it the king, in part of his royal revenue. But a man that scatters his treasure into the sea, or upon the public surface of the earth, is construed to have absolutely abandoned his property, and returned it into the common stock without any intention of reclaiming it, and therefore it belongs, as in a state of nature, to the first occupant or finder, unless the owner appear and assert his right, which then proves that the loss was by accident, and not with an intent to renounce his property. 14. Formerly all treasure trove belong to the finder, as was also the rule of the civil law. In other words, it was judged expedient for the purposes of the state, and particularly for the coinage, to allow part of what was found to the king, which part was assigned to be all hidden treasure, such as is casually lost and unclaimed, and also such as designedly abandoned, still retaining the right of the fortunate finder. And that the prince shall be entitled to this hidden treasure is now grown to be, according to Grosius, jus commune equasi gentium, for it is not only observed he adds in England, but in Germany, France, Spain, and Denmark. The finding of deposited treasure was much more frequent, and the treasures themselves more considerable in the infancy of our constitution than at present. When the Romans, and other inhabitants of the respective countries which composed their empire, were driven out by the northern nations, they concealed their money underground, with a view of resorting to it again when the heat of the eruptions should be over, and the invaders driven back into their deserts. But as this never happened, the treasures were never reclaimed, and on the death of the owners the secret also died along with them. The conquering generals, being aware of the value of these hidden mines, made it highly penal to secrete them from the public service. In England, therefore, as among the feudists, the punishment of such as concealed from the king the finding of hidden treasure was formerly no less than death, but now it is only fine and imprisonment. Waves, bonna waviata, are goods stolen and waved or thrown away by the thief in his flight, for fear of being apprehended. These are given to the king by the law, as a punishment upon the owner, for not himself pursuing the felon and taking away his goods from him. And therefore, if the party robbed, do his diligence immediately to follow and apprehend the thief, which is called making fresh suit, or do convict him afterwards, or procure evidence to convict him, he shall have his goods again. Waved goods do also not belong to the king till seized by somebody for his use, for if the party robbed can seize them first, though at the distance of twenty years the king shall never have them. If the goods are hid by the thief, or left anywhere by him, so that he had not them about him when he fled, and therefore did not throw them away in his flight, these also are not bonna waviata, but the owner may have them again when he pleases. The goods of a foreign merchant, though stolen and thrown away in flight, shall never be waifs, the reason whereof may be, not only for the encouragement of trade, but also because there is no willful default in the foreign merchants not pursuing the thief, he being generally a stranger to our laws, our usages, and our languages. 15. Astrays are such valuable animals as are found wandering in any manor or lordship, and no man knoweth the owner of them, in which case the law gives them to the king as the general owner and lord paramount of the soil, in recompense for the damage which they may have done therein, and they now most commonly belong to the lord of the manor by special grant from the crown. But in order to vest an absolute property in the king or his grantees they must be proclaimed in the church and the two market towns next joining to the place where they are found. And then, if no man claims them, after proclamation and a year and a day passed, they belong to the king or his substitute without redemption, even though the owner were a minor or under any other legal incapacity. A provision similar to which obtained in the old goth constitution, with regard to all things that were found, which were to be thrice-proclaimed, primum quorum convitibus and vietiboris avias, diende in proxima villa vel pago, postrima quorum ecclesiasca vel judico, and the space of a year was allowed for the owner to reclaim his property. If the owner claims them within the year and the day, he must pay the charges of finding, keeping, and proclaiming them. The king or lord hath no property till a year and a day passed, for if a lord keepeth in astray three-quarters of a year and within the year at strayeth again and another lord geteth it, the first lord cannot take it again. Any beast may be in astray that is by nature tame or reclaimable, and in which there is a valuable property, as sheep, oxen, swine, and horses, which we in general call cattle, and so flooded to find it, peccas vagans, quadnolus pettit, sequitura vel advocate. For animals upon which law sets no value, as a dog or cat, and animals fairy-nature, as a bear or wolf, cannot be considered as astrays. So swans may be astrays, but not any other fowl, whence they are said to be royal fowl. The reason of which distinction seems to be that, as cattle and swans being of a reclaimed nature, the owner's property in them is not lost merely by their temporary escape, and they also, from their intrinsic value, are a sufficient pledge for the expense of the lord of the franchise in keeping them the year and a day. For he that takes an astray is bound, so long as he keeps it, to find it in provisions and keep it from damage, and may not use it by way of labor, but is liable to an action for so doing. Yet he may milk a cow or the like, for that tends to the preservation, and is for the benefit of the animals. Besides the particular reasons before given why the king should have the several revenues of royal fish, shipwrecks, treasure trove, waifs, and astrays, there is also one general reason which holds for them all, and that is, because they are bona vacantia, or goods in which no one else can claim a property, and therefore by the law of nature they belong to the first occupant or finder, and so continued under the imperial law. But in settling the modern constitutions of most of the governments in Europe, it was thought proper to prevent that strife and contention which the mere title of occupancy is apt to create and continue, and to provide for the support of public authority in a manner the least burdensome to the people's, that these rights should be annexed to the supreme power by the positive laws of the state. And so it came to pass that, as Bracton expresses it, heck quae nulius in bona sunt et olum furrent inventores de jure naturale jam efficantir propicis de jure gentium. 16. The next branch of the king's ordinary revenue consists in forfeitures of lands and goods for offenses, bona confiscata, as they are called by the civilians, because they belong to the fiscus or imperial treasury, or, as our lawyers turn them, forisfacta, that is, such whereof the property is gone away or departed from the owner. The true reason and only substantial ground of any forfeiture for crimes consist in this, that all property is derived from society, being one of those civil rights which are conferred upon individuals in exchange for that decree of natural freedom, which every man must sacrifice when he enters into social communities. If, therefore, a member of any national community violates the fundamental contract of his association, by transgressing the municipal laws, he forfeits his right to such privileges as he claims by that contract, and the state may, very justly, resume that portion of property, or any part of it, which the laws have before assigned him. Hence, in every offense of an atrocious kind, the laws of England have exacted a total confiscation of the movables or personal estate, and, in many cases, a perpetual, in others only a temporary loss of the offender's immovable or landed property, and have vested them both in the king, who is the person supposed to be offended, being the one visible magistrate in whom the majesty of the public resides. The particulars of these forfeatures will be more properly recited when we treat of crimes and misdemeanors. I, therefore, only mention them here for the sake of regularity, as a part of the census regulus, and shall postpone for the present the farther consideration of all forfeitures, accepting one species only, which arises from the misfortune rather than the crime of the owner, and is called a deodonde. By this is meant whatever personal chattel is the immediate occasion of the death of any reasonable creature, which is forfeited to the king, to be applied to pious uses, and distributed in alms by his high almaner, though formerly destined to a more superstitious purpose. It seems to have been originally designed, in the blind days of potpoury, as an expiation for the souls of such as were snatched away by sudden death, and for that purpose ought properly have been given to holy church, in the same manner as the apparel of a stranger who was found dead was applied to purchase masses for the good of his soul. And this may account for that rule of law, that no deodonde is due where an infant under the years of discretion is killed by a fall from a cart, or horse, or the like, not being in motion, whereas, if an adult person falls from thence and is killed, the thing is certainly forfeited. For the reason given by Sir Matthew Hale seems to be very inadequate, vis, because an infant is not able to take care of himself, for why should the owner save his forfeiture on account of the imbecility of the child, which ought rather have made him more cautious to prevent any accident of mischief? The two ground of this rule seems rather to be that the child, by reason of its want of discretion, is presumed incapable of actual sin, and therefore needed no deodonde to purchase propitiary masses. But every adult who dies in actual sin stood in need of such atonement, according to the humane superstitions of the founders of the English law. Thus stands the law, if a person be killed by a fall from a thing standing still. But if a horse, or ox, or other animal of his own motion kill as well an infant as an adult, or if a cart runs over him they shall in either case be forfeited as deodons, which is grounded upon this additional reason that such misfortunes are in part owing to the negligence of the owner. And therefore he is properly punished by such forfeiture. A like punishment is in like cases inflicted in the mosaic law. If an ox gore a man, that he die, the ox shall be stoned, and his flesh shall not be eaten. And among the Athenians, whatever was the cause of a man's death, by falling upon him was exterminated or cast out of the dominions of the republic. Where a thing not in motion is the occasion of a man's death, that part only which is the immediate cause is forfeited. As if a man be climbing up a wheel, and is killed by falling from it, the wheel alone is a deodon. But wherever the thing is in motion, not only that part which immediately gives the wound, as the wheel which runs over the body, but all things which move with it and help to make the wound more dangerous, as the cart and loading which increase the pressure of the wheels are forfeited. It matters not whether the owner were concerned in the killing or not, for if a man kills another with my sword, the sword is forfeited as an accursed thing. And therefore, in all indictments for homicide, the instrument of death and the value are presented and found by the grand jury, as that the stroke was given with a certain pen-knife, value sixpence, that the king or his grantee may claim the deodon, for it is no deodon unless it be presented as such by a jury of twelve men. No deodons are due for accidents happening upon the high sea, that being out of the jurisdiction of the common law. But if a man falls from a boat or ship in fresh water and is drowned, the vessel and cargo are in strictness a deodon. Deodons and forfeitures in general, as well as wrecks, treasure-trove, royal fish, mines, waifs, and astrays, may be granted by the king to particular subjects, as a royal franchise, and indeed they are for the most part granted out to the lords of manners or other liberties to the perversion of their original design. Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone Book I. Chapter 8. Part 3. 17. Another branch of the king's ordinary revenue arises from a sheets of land which happened upon the defective heirs to succeed to the inheritance, whereupon they in general revert to invest in the king, who is esteemed, in the eye of the law, the original proprietor of all the lands in the kingdom. But the discussion of this topic more properly belongs to the second book of these commentaries, wherein we shall particularly consider the manner in which lands may be acquired or lost by a sheet. 18. I proceed therefore to the eighteenth and last branch of the king's ordinary revenue which consists in the custody of idiots, from whence we shall naturally lead to consider also the custody of lunatics. An idiot or natural fool is one that hath had no understanding from his nativity, and therefore is by law presumed never likely to attain any. For which reason the custody of him and of his lands was formerly vested in the Lord of the Fee, and therefore still by special custom, in some manners the Lord shall have the ordering of idiot and lunatic copyholders. But by reason of the manifold abuses of this power by subjects, it was at last provided by common consent that it should be given to the king as the general conservator of his people in order to prevent the idiot from wasting his estate and reducing himself and his heirs to poverty and distress. This fiscal prerogative of the king is declared in Parliament by statute 17th Edward II C. IX, which directs, in affirmance of the common law, that the king shall have ward of the lands of natural fools, taking the profits without waste or destruction, and shall find them necessaries, and after the death of such idiots he shall render the estate to the heirs, in order to prevent such idiots from alienating their lands and their heirs from being disinherited. By the old common law there is a writ di idiota in Quarendo to inquire whether a man be an idiot or not, which must be tried by a jury of twelve men, and if they find him purist idiota, the profits of his land and the custody of his person may be granted by the king to some subject, who has interest enough to obtain them. This branch of the revenue hath been long considered as a hardship upon private families, and so long ago as in the Eighth James I, it was under the consideration of Parliament to vest this custody in the relations of the party, and to settle an equivalent on the crown in lieu of it, it being then proposed to share the same fate with the slavery of the feudal tenures, which has been since abolished. Yet few instances can be given of the oppressive exertion of it, since it seldom happens that a jury finds a man an idiot an itavitate, but only non-composmentus from some particular time, which has an operation very different point of law. A man is not an idiot if he hath any glimmering of reason, so that he can tell his parents, his age, or the like common matters. But a man who is born deaf, dumb, and blind is looked upon by the law as in the same state with an idiot, he being supposed incapable of understanding, as wanting those senses which furnish the human mind with ideas. A lunatic, or non-composmentus, is one who hath had understanding, but by disease, grief, or other accident hath lost the use of his reason. A lunatic is indeed properly one that hath lucid intervals, sometimes enjoying his senses, and sometimes not, and that frequently depending upon the change of the moon. But under the general name of non-composmentus, which Sir Edward Koch says is the most legal name, are comprised not only lunatics, but persons under frenzies, or who lose their intellects by disease, those that grow deaf, dumb, and blind, not being born so, or such, in short, as are by any means rendered incapable of conducting their own affairs. To these also, as well as idiots, the king is guardian, but to a very different purpose. For the law always imagines that these accidental misfortunes may be removed, and therefore only constitutes the crown of trustee for the unfortunate persons, to protect their property, and to account to them for all profits received, if they recover, or after their decease to their representatives. And therefore it is declared by the statute, 17th Edward II, C. 10, that the king shall provide for the custody and sustentations of lunatics, and preserve their lands and the profits of them for their use, when they come to their right mind, and the king shall take nothing to his own use, and if the parties die in such a state, their residue shall be distributed for their souls by the advice of the ordinary, and of course by the subsequent amendments of the law of administrations shall now go to their executors or administrators. The method of proving a person non-compose is very similar to that of proving him an idiot. The Lord Chancellor, to whom, by special authority from the king, the custody of idiots and lunatics is entrusted, upon petition or information, grants a commission in nature of the writ di idiotia in correndo to inquire into the party state of mind, and if he be found non-compose he usually commits the care of this person with a suitable allowance for his maintenance to some friend, who is then called his committee. However, to prevent sinister practices the next heir is never permitted to be this committee of the person, because it is his interest that the party should die. But it hath been said there lies not the same objection against his next of kin, provided he be not his heir, for it is his interest to preserve the lunatic's life in order to increase the personal estate by savings, which he or his family may hereafter be entitled to enjoy. The heir is generally made the manager or committee of the estate, it being clearly his interest by good management to keep it in condition, accountable, however, to the court of chancellery, and to the non-compose himself if he recovers, or otherwise, to his administrators. In this care of idiots and lunatics the civil law agrees with ours, by assigning them tutors to protect their persons and curators to manage their estates. But in another instance the Roman law goes much beyond the English, for if a man by notorious prodigality was in danger of wasting his estate he was looked upon as non-compose and committed to the care of curators or tutors by the praetor. And by the laws of Solon such prodigals were branded with perpetual infamy. But with us, when a man on an inquest of idiocy hath been returned an unthrift and not an idiot, no farther proceedings have been had, and the propriety of the practice itself seems to be very questionable. It was doubtless an excellent method of benefiting the individual and of preserving estates and families, but it hardly seems calculated for the genius of a free nation, who claim and exercise the liberty of using their own property as they please. And the frequent circulation and transfer of lands and other property, which cannot be effected without extravagance somewhere, are perhaps not a little conducive towards keeping our mixed constitution in its due health and vigor. This may suffice for a short view of the king's ordinary revenue, or the proper patrimony of the crown, which was very large formerly and capable of being increased to a magnitude truly formidable, for there are very few estates in the kingdom that have not, at some period or other since the Norman conquest, been vested in the hands of the king by forfeiture, a cheat, or otherwise. But fortunately for the liberty of the subject this hereditary landed revenue by a series of improvident management is sunk almost to nothing, and the casual profits arising from the other branches of the census regulus are likewise almost all of them alienated from the crown. In order to supply the deficiencies of which we are now obliged to have recourse to new methods of raising money, unknown to our early ancestors, which methods constitute the king's extraordinary revenue. For the public patrimony being got into the hands of private subjects it is but reasonable that private contributions should supply the public service, which, though it may perhaps fall harder upon some individuals whose ancestors have had no share in the general plunder than upon others, yet taking the nation throughout it amounts to nearly the same, provided the gain by the extraordinary should appear to be no greater than the loss by the ordinary revenue. And perhaps if every gentleman in the kingdom was to be stripped of such lands as were formerly the property of the crown, was to be again subject to the inconveniences of purveyance and preemption, the oppression of forest laws and the slavery of feudal tenures, and was to resign into the king's hands all his royal franchise of waifs, wrecks, strays, treasure-trove, mines, daudans, forfeitures, and the like, he would find himself a greater loser than by paying his quota to such taxes as are necessary to the support of government. The thing therefore to be wished and aimed at in a land of liberty is by no means the total abolition of taxes, which would draw after it very pernicious consequences, and the very supposition of which is at the height of political absurdity. Therefore as the true idea of government and majesty will be found to consist in this, that some few men are deputed by many others to preside over public affairs, so that individuals may the better be enabled to attend to their private concerns, it is necessary that those individuals should be bound to contribute a portion of their private gains in order to support that government and reward that majesty which protects them in the enjoyment of their respective properties. But the things to be aimed at are wisdom and moderation, not only in granting, but also in the method of raising the necessary supplies. By contriving to do both in such a manner as may be the most conducive to the national welfare, and at the same time most consistent with economy and the liberty of the subject, who, when properly taxed, contributes only, as was before observed, some part of his property in order to enjoy the rest. These extraordinary grants are usually called by the synonymous names of aides, subsidies, and supplies, and are granted, we have formerly seen, by the commons of Great Britain, in Parliament assembled, who when they have voted, a supply to his majesty, and settled the quantum of that supply, usually resolve themselves into what is called Committee of Ways and Means, to consider of the ways and means of raising the supply so voted. And in this committee every member, though it is looked upon as the peculiar province of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, may propose such scheme of taxation as he thinks will be least detrimental to the public. The resolutions of this Committee, when approved by a vote of the House, are in general esteemed to be, as it were, final and conclusive. For, though the supply cannot be actually raised upon the subject till directed by an act of the whole Parliament, yet no moneyed man will scruple to advance to the government any quantity of ready cash, on the credit of a bare vote of the House of Commons, though no law be yet passed to establish it. The taxes which are raised upon the subject are either annual or perpetual. The usual annual taxes are those upon land and malt. One. The land tax, in its modern shape, has superseded all the former methods of raiding either property, or persons, in respect of their property, whether by tenths or fifteenths, subsidies on land, by hadeges, scouteges, or taliages, a short explication of which will greatly assist us in understanding our ancient laws and history. Tenths and fifteenths were temporary aids issuing out of personal property, and granted to the King by Parliament. They were formerly the real tenth or fifteenth part of all the moveables belonging to the subject. One such moveables, or personal estates, were a very different and much less considerable thing than what they usually are at this day. Tenths are said to have been first granted under Henry II, who took advantage of the fashionable zeal for crusades to introduce this new taxation in order to defray the expense of a pious expedition to Palestine, which he really or seemingly had projected against Saladin, emperor of the Saracens, once it was originally denominated the Saladin tenth. But afterwards fifteenths were more usually granted than tenths. Originally the amount of these taxes was uncertain, being levied by assessments new-made at each fresh grant of the commons, a commission for which is preserved by Matthew Parris. But it was at length reduced to a certainty in the eighth of Edward III, when, by virtue of the King's commission, new taxations were made of every township, borough, and city in the kingdom, and recorded in the Exchequer. Which rate was, at the time, the fifteenth part of the value of every township, the whole amounting to about twenty-nine thousand pounds, and therefore it still kept up the name of a fifteenth, when, by the alteration of the value of money and the increase of personal property, things came to be in a very different situation. So that when, of later years, the commons granted the king of fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew their proportion of it, that is, the same identical sum that was assessed by the same aid of the eighth of Edward III, and then raised it by a rate among themselves, and returned it into the Royal Exchequer. The other ancient laws were in the nature of a modern land tax, for we may trace up the original of that charge as high as to the introduction of our military tenures, when every tenant of a night's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend the king and his army for forty days in every year. But this personal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the tenants found means of compounding for it, by first sending others in their stead, and in process of time making a pecuniary satisfaction to the crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction, at last, came to be levied by assessments, at so much for every night's fee, under the name of scudiges, which appear to have been levied for the first time in the fifth year of Henry II, on account of his expedition to Toulouse, and were then, I apprehend, mere arbitrary compositions as the king and the subject could agree. But this president, being afterwards abused into a means of oppression, by levying scudiges on the landholders by the royal authority only, whenever our kings went to war in order to hire mercenary troops and pay their contingent expenses, it became thereupon a matter of national complaint, and King John was obliged to promise, in his Magna Carta, that no scudiges should be imposed without the consent of the common council of the realm. This clause was indeed omitted in the Charters of Henry III, where we only find it stipulated that scudiges should be taken as they were used to be in the time of King Henry II. Yet afterwards, by a variety of statutes under Edward I and his grandson, it was provided that the king shall not take any aids or tasks, any tallyage or tax, but by the common assent of the great men and commons in Parliament. Of the same nature with scudiges upon night's fees were the assessments of hidegit on all other lands, and of tallyage upon cities and boroughs. But they all gradually fell into disuse, upon the introduction of subsidies, about the time of King Richard II and King Henry IV. This were attacks not immediately opposed upon property, but upon persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of four shillings in the pound for lands, and two shillings six pints for goods, and for those of aliens in a double proportion. But this assessment was also made according to an ancient valuation, wherein the computation was so very moderate, and the rental of the kingdom was supposed to be so exceedingly low, that one subsidy of this sort did not, according to Sir Edward Koch, amount to more than seven hundred thousand pounds, whereas a modern land tax at the same rate produces two millions. It was anciently the rule never to grant more than one subsidy, and two fifteenths at a time, but this rule was broke through for the first time on a very pressing occasion, the Spanish invasion in fifteen eighty-eight, when the Parliament gave Elizabeth two subsidies and four fifteenths. Afterwards, as money sunk in value, more subsidies were given, and we have an instance in the first Parliament of sixteen forty, of the kings desiring twelve subsidies of the commons to be levied in three years, which was looked upon as a startling proposal. Though Lord Clarendon tells us that the speaker, Sergeant Glanville, made it manifest to the house how very inconsiderable a sum twelve subsidies amounted to, by telling them he had computed what he was to pay for them, and when he named the sum, he being known to be possessed of a greatest state, it seemed not worth any further deliberation. And indeed upon calculation we shall find that the total amount of these twelve subsidies to be raised in three years is less than what is now raised in one year by a land tax of two shillings in the pound. The grant of scudgages, tallyages, or subsidies by the commons did not extend to spiritual performance, those being usually taxed at the same time by the clergy themselves in convocation, which grants of the clergy were confirmed in parliament, otherwise they were illegal and not binding, as the same noble writer observes of the subsidies granted by the convocation, who continued sitting after the dissolution of the first parliament in sixteen forty. A subsidy granted by the clergy was after the rate of four shillings in the pound, according to the valuation of their livings in the king's books, and amounted, Sir Edward Cote tells us, to about twenty thousand pounds. While this custom continued, convocations were want to sit as frequently as parliaments, but the last subsidies, thus given by the clergy, were those confirmed by statute fifteenth Charles II, cap ten. Since which another method of taxation has generally prevailed, which takes in the clergy as well as the laity, in recompense for which the benefits the clergy have, from that period, been allowed to vote at the elections of knights of the shire, and thenceforward also the practice of giving ecclesiastical subsidies hath fallen into total disuse. The lay subsidy was usually raised by commissioners appointed by the crown, or the great officers of state, and therefore in the beginning of the civil wars between Charles I and his parliament, the latter, having no other sufficient revenue to support themselves and their measures, introduced the practice of laying weekly and monthly assessments of a specific sum upon the several counties of the kingdom, to be levied by a pound rate on lands and personal estates, which were occasionally continued during the whole usurpation, sometimes at the rate of one hundred and twenty pounds a month, sometimes at inferior rates. After the restoration the ancient method of granting subsidies, instead of such monthly assessments, was twice and twice only renewed. Viz in sixteen sixty-three, when four subsidies were granted by the temporality and four by the clergy, and in sixteen seventy, when eight hundred thousand pounds was raised by way of a subsidy, which was the last time of raising supplies in that manner. Four, the monthly assessments being now established by custom, being raised by commissioners named by parliament, and producing a more certain revenue, from that time forwards we hear no more of subsidies, but occasional assessments were granted as the national emergencies required. These periodical assessments, the subsidies which preceded them, and the more ancient scuddig, hidege, and teliedge, were to all intents and purposes a land tax, and the assessments were sometimes expressly called so. Yet a popular opinion has prevailed that the land tax was first introduced in the reign of King William III, because in the year sixteen ninety-two a new assessment or valuation of estates was made throughout the kingdom, which, though by no means a perfect one, had this effect, that a supply of five hundred thousand pounds was equal to one shilling in the pound of the value of the estates given in. And according to this enhanced valuation, from the year sixteen ninety-three to the present, a period of above seventy years, the land tax has continued an annual charge upon the subject, above half the time at four shillings in the pound, sometimes at three shillings, sometimes at two shillings, twice at one shilling, but without any total intermission. The medium has been three shillings, three pins in the pound, being equivalent to twenty-three ancient subsidies, and amounting annually to more than a million and a half of money. The method of raising it is by charging a particular sum upon each county, according to the valuation given in A.D. sixteen ninety-two, and this sum is assessed and raised upon individuals, their personal estates, as well as real, being liable there, too, by commissioners appointed in the act, being the principal landholders of the county and their officers. Two. The other tax is the malt tax, which is a sum of seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds, raised every year by parliament ever since sixteen ninety-seven, by a duty of six pins in the bushel on malt, and a proportionable sum on certain liquors, such as cider and peri, which might otherwise prevent the consumption of malt. This is under the management of the commissioners of the excise, and is indeed itself no other than an annual excise, the nature of which species of taxation I still presently explain, only premising it present that in the year seventeen sixty, an additional perpetual excise of three pints per bushel was laid upon malt, and in seventeen sixty-three a proportionable excise was laid upon cider and peri. CHAPTER VIII. The perpetual taxes are, one, the customs, or the duties, toll, tribute, or tariff, payable upon merchandise exported and imported. The considerations upon this revenue, or the more ancient part of it, which arose only from exports, was invested in the king, were said to be, two, one, because he gave the subject leave to depart the kingdom and to carry his goods along with them, two, because the king was bound of common right to maintain and keep up the ports and havens, and to protect the merchant from pirates. Some have imagined they are called with us customs, because they were the inheritance of the king by immemorial usage and the common law, and not granted to him by any statute. But Sir Edward Koch hath clearly shown that the king's first claim to them was by grant of parliament, three, Edward I, though the record thereof is not now extant. And indeed this is in express words confessed by the statute, 25th Edward I, C. 7, wherein the king promises to take no customs from merchants, without the common assent of the realm, saving to us in our heirs the customs on wools, skins, and leather, formerly granted to us by the commonality of foresaid. These were formerly called the hereditary customs of the crown, and were due in the exportation only of the said three commodities and of none other, which were styled the staple commodities of the kingdom, because they were obliged to be brought to those ports where the king's staple was established in order to be there first raided and then exported. They were denominated in the barbarous Latin of our ancient records, costume, not costitudinis, which is the language of our law whenever it means merely usages. The duties on wool, sheep skins, or woolfells, and leather, exported were called costume antiqua sieve magna, and were payable by every merchant, as well native as stranger, with this difference, that merchant-strangers paid an additional toll, veeds have as much again as was paid by natives. The costume of Parva and Nova were an impost of three pins in the pound, due for merchant-strangers only, for all commodities as well imported as exported, which was usually called the alien's duty, and was first granted in the thirty-first Edward I. But these ancient hereditary customs, especially those on wool and woolfells, came to be of little count when the nation became sensible of the advantages of a home manufacturer, and prohibited the exportation of wool by statute 11 Edward III, C. 1. There is also another ancient hereditary duty belonging to the crown, called the presage or butlerage of wines. Presage was a ride of taking two tons of wine from every ship importing into England twenty tons or more, which by Edward I was changed into a duty of two shillings for every ton imported by merchant-strangers, which is called butlerage, because paid to the king's butler. Other customs payable upon imports and exports are distinguished into subsidies, tonnage, poundage, and other imposts. Subsidies are such as were imposed by Parliament upon any of the staple commodities before mentioned, over and above the costume antique and magna. Tonnage was a duty upon all wines imported, over and above the presage and butlerage aforesaid. Tonnage was a duty imposed ad valorem at the rate of twelve pence in the pound, on all other merchandise whatsoever, and the other imports were such as were occasionally laid on by Parliament as circumstances and times required. These distinctions are now in a manner forgotten except by the officers immediately concerned in this department, their produce being in effect all blended together under the one denomination of the customs. By these we understand at present a duty or subsidy paid by the merchant, at the key upon all imported as well as exported commodities, by authority of Parliament, unless where, for particular national reasons, certain rewards, bounties, or drawbacks are allowed for particular exports or imports. Those of tonnage and poundage in particular were at first granted as the old statutes and particularly first Elizabeth C. 19 express it, for the defense of the realm and the keeping and safeguard of the seas, and for the intercourse of merchandise safely to come into and pass out of the same. They were at first usually granted only for a stated term of years, as for two years in fifth Richard III, but in Henry the Fifth's time they were granted him for life by a statute in the third year of his reign, and again to Edward IV for the term of his life also, since which time they were regularly granted to all his successors for life, sometimes at their first, sometimes at other subsequent parliaments, till the reign of Charles the First, when, as had before happened in the reign of Henry the Eighth, and other princes, they were neglected to be asked. And yet they were imprudently and unconstitutionally levied and taken without consent to Parliament, though more than one had been assembled for fifteen years together, which was one of the causes of those unhappy discontents, justifiable at first in too many instances, but which degenerated at last into causeless rebellion and murder. For, as in every other, so in this particular case, the king, previous to the commencement of hostilities, gave the nation ample satisfaction for the errors of his former conduct, by passing an act whereby he renounced all power in the crown of levying the duty of tonnage and poundage without the express consent to Parliament, and also all power of imposition upon any merchandises whatsoever. Upon the restoration this duty was granted to King Charles II for life, and so it was to his two immediate successors. But now, by three successive statutes, Ninth Anne C. VI, First George I, C. XII, and Third George I, C. VII, it is made perpetual and mortgaged for the dead of the public. The customs, thus imposed by Parliament, are chiefly contained in two books of rates, set forth by Parliamentary authority, one signed by Sir Harbuddle Grimstone, Speaker of the House of Commons in Charles II's time, and the other, an additional one signed by Sir Spencer Compton, Speaker in the reign of George I, to which also subsequent additions have been made. Aliens pay a larger proportion than natural subjects, which is what is now generally understood by the Aliens' duty, to be exempted from which is one principle cause of the frequent applications to Parliament for acts of naturalization. These customs are, then, we see, attacks immediately paid by the merchant, though ultimately by the consumer. And yet these are the duties felt leased by the people, and if prudently managed the people hardly considered that they pay them at all. For the merchant is easy, being sensible he does not pay them for himself, and the consumer, who really pays them, can founds them with the price of the commodity, in the same manner as Tacitus observes, that the Emperor Nero gained the reputation of abolishing the tax on the sale of slaves, though he only transferred it from the buyer to the seller, so that it was, as he expresses it, brimissum magis spisi, quamvi, quiacum venditor pendere jubberitor, in partum preti, emptoribus acressibot. But this inconvenience attends it, on the other hand, that these impôts, if too heavy, are a check and cramp upon trade, and especially when the value of the commodity bears little or no proportion to the quantity of the duty imposed. This inconsequence gives rise also to smuggling, which then becomes a very lucrative employment, and its natural and most reasonable punishment, vis, confiscation of the commodity, is in such cases quite ineffectual, the intrinsic value of the goods, which is all that the smuggler has paid, and therefore all that he can lose, being very inconsiderable when compared with his prospect of advantage in evading the duty. Recourse must therefore be had to extraordinary punishments to prevent it, perhaps even to capital ones, which destroys all proportion of punishment, and puts murderers upon an equal footing with such as are really guilty of no natural, but merely a positive offense. There is also another ill consequence attending high impôts on merchandise, not frequently considered, but indisputably certain, that the earlier any tax is laid on a commodity, the heavier it falls upon the consumer in the end, for every trader, through whose hands it passes, must have a profit, not only upon the raw material and his own labor and time in preparing it, but also upon the very tax itself, which he advances to the government, otherwise he loses the use and interest of the money which he so advances. To instance, in the article of foreign paper, the merchant pays a duty upon importation, which he does not receive again till he sells the commodity, perhaps at the end of three months. He is therefore equally entitled to a profit upon that duty which he pays at the Custom House, as to a profit upon the original price which he pays to the manufacturer abroad, and considers it accordingly in the price he demands of the stationer. When the stationer sells it again, he requires a profit of the printer or bookseller upon the wholesome advanced by him to the merchant, and the bookseller does not forget to charge the full proportion to the student, or ultimate consumer, who therefore does not only pay the original duty, but the profits of these three intermediate traders who have successively advanced it for him. This might be carried much farther in any mechanical or more complicated branch of trade. Two. Directly opposite in its nature to this is the excise duty, which is an inland imposition paid sometimes upon the consumption of the commodity or frequently upon the retail sale, which is the last stage before the consumption. This is doubtless, impartially speaking, the most economical way of taxing the subject, the charges of levying, collecting, and managing the excise duties being considerably less in proportion than in any other branch of the revenue. It also renders the commodity cheaper to the consumer than charging it with customs to the same amount would do, for the reason just now given, that because generally paid in a much later stage of it. But at the same time the rigor and arbitrary proceedings of excise laws seem hardly compatible with the temper of a free nation. For the frauds that might be committed in this branch of the revenue, unless a strict watch is kept, make it necessary, whenever it is established, to give the officers a power of entering and searching the houses of such as deal in excisible commodities, at any hour of the day, and in many cases of the night likewise. And the proceedings in case of transgressions are so summary and sudden, that a man may be convicted in two days' time in the penalty of many thousand pounds by two commissioners or justices of the peace, to the total exclusion of the trial by jury, and disregard of the common law. For which reason, though Lord Clarendon tells us that to his knowledge the Earl of Bedford, who was made Lord Treasurer by King Charles I, to oblige his parliament, intended to have set up the excise in England, yet it never made a part of that unfortunate prince's revenue, being first introduced on the model of the Dutch prototype by the parliament itself after its rupture with the Crown. Yet such was the opinion of its general unpopularity, that when, in 1642, aspersions were cast by malignant persons upon the House of Commons that they intended to introduce excises, the House for its vindication therein did declare that these rumours were false and scandalous, and that their authors should be apprehended and brought to punishment. Its original establishment was in 1643, and its progress was gradual, being at first laid upon those persons and commodities where it was supposed the hardships would be the least perceivable. Viz, the makers and vendors of beer, ale, cider, and parry, and the royalists at Oxford soon followed the example of their brethren at Westminster by imposing a similar duty, both sides protesting that it should be continued no longer than till the end of the war, and then be utterly abolished. But the parliament at Westminster soon after imposed it on flesh, wine, tobacco, sugar, and such a multitude of other commodities that it might fairly be denominated general, in pursuance of the plan laid down by Mr. Pym, who seems to have been the father of the excise, in his letter to Sir John Hotham, signifying that they had proceeded in the excise to many particulars, and intended to go farther, but that it would be necessary to use the people to it by little and little. And afterwards, when the people had been accustomed to it for a series of years, the succeeding champions of liberty boldly and openly declared the impost of excise to be the most easy and indifferent levy that could be laid upon the people, and accordingly continued it during the whole usurpation. Upon King Charles's return, it having then been long established and its produce well known, some part of it was given to the crown, in the twelfth Charles II by way of purchase, as was before observed, for the feudal tenures and other oppressive parts of the hereditary revenue. But from its first original to the present time, its very name has been odious to the people of England. It has nevertheless been imposed on abundance of other commodities in the reins of King William III and every succeeding prince to support the enormous expenses occasioned by our wars on the continent. Thus, brandies and other spirits are excised at the distillery, printed silks and linens at the printers, starch and hair powder at the makers, gold and silver wire at the wire-drawers, all plate whatsoever, first in the hands of the vendor, who pays yearly for a license to sell it, and afterwards in the hands of the occupier, who also pays an annual duty for having it in his custody, and coaches and other wheel carriages for which the occupier is excised, though not with the same circumstances of arbitrary strictness with regard to plating coaches as in the other instances. To these we may add coffee and tea, chocolate and cocoa paste, for which the duty is paid by the retailer, all artificial wines, commonly called sweets, paper and pasteboard, first when made and again if stained or printed, malt as before mentioned, vinegars and the manufacture of glass, for all of which the duty is paid by the manufacturer, hops for which the person that gathers them is answerable, candles and soap, which are paid for at the makers, malt-lickers brewed for sale, which are excised at the brewery, cider and parry at the mill, and leather and skins at the tanners, a list which no friend to his country would wish to see farther increased. I proceed therefore to a third duty, namely that upon salt, which is another distinct branch of his majesty's extraordinary revenue, and consists in an excise of three shillings, four pints for bushel imposed upon all salt, by several statutes of King William and other subsequent rains. This is not generally called an excise, because under the management of different commissioners, but the commissioners of the salt duties have, by statute, first and C-21, the same powers and must observe the same regulations as those of other excises. This tax had been usually only temporary, but by statute, twenty-sixth George II, C-3, was made perpetual. Four. Another very considerable branch of the revenue is levied with greater cheerfulness, as instead of being a burden, it is a manifest advantage to the public. I mean the post office, or duty for the carriage of letters. As we have traced the original of the excise to the parliament of sixteen forty-three, so it is but justice to observe that this useful invention owes its birth to the same assembly. It is true there existed postmasters in much earlier times, but I apprehend their business was confined to the furnishing of post-horses to persons who were desirous to travel expeditiously, and to the dispatching extraordinary packets upon special occasions. The outline of the present plan seems to have been originally conceived by Mr. Edmund Pradoe, who was appointed Attorney-General to the Commonwealth after the murder of King Charles. He was a chairman of a committee in sixteen forty-two for considering what rate should be set upon inland letters, and afterwards appointed postmaster by an ordinance of both the houses, in the execution of which office he first established a weekly conveyance of letters into all parts of the nation, thereby saving to the public the charge of maintaining postmasters to the amount of seven thousand pounds per annum. And his own emoluments being probably considerable, the Common Council of London endeavored to erect another post- office in opposition to his, till checked by a resolution of the Commons, declaring that the office of postmaster is and ought to be in the sole power and disposal of the Parliament. This office was afterwards farmed by one manly in sixteen fifty-four. But in sixteen fifty-seven a regular post- office was erected by the authority of the protector in his Parliament, upon nearly the same model as has been ever since adopted, with the same rates of postage as were continued till the reign of Queen Anne. Under the restoration a similar office, with some improvements, was established by statute twelve Charles II, C. 35, but the rates of letters were altered, and some farther regulations added by these statutes nine Anne, C. 10, six George I, C. 21, twenty-six George II, C. 12, and fifth George III, C. 25. And penalties were enacted in order to confine the carriage of letters to the public office only, except in some few cases. A provision, which is absolutely necessary, for nothing but an exclusive right, can support an office of this sort. Many rival independent offices would only serve to ruin one another. The privilege of letters coming free of postage to and from members of Parliament was claimed by the House of Commons in sixteen sixty, when the first legal settlement of the present post-office was made, but afterwards dropped upon a private assurance from the Crown that this privilege should be allowed to members. And accordingly a warrant was constantly issued to the postmaster general, directing the allowance thereof to the extent of two ounces in weight, till at length it was expressly confirmed by statute fourth George III, C. 24, which adds many new regulations rendered necessary by the great abuses crept into the practice of franking, whereby the annual amount of franked letters had gradually increased from twenty-three thousand six hundred pounds in the year seventeen fifteen to one hundred and seventy thousand seven hundred pounds in the year sixteen sixty-three. There cannot be devised a more eligible method than this of raising money upon the subject, for therein both the government and the people find a mutual benefit. The government acquires a large revenue, and the people do their business with greater ease, expedition, and cheapness than they would be able to do if no such tax, and of course no such office existed. V. A fifth branch of the perpetual revenue consists in the stamp duties, which are attacks imposed upon all the parchment and paper whereon any legal proceedings, or private instruments of almost any nature whatsoever, are written, and also upon licenses for retailing wines, of all denominations, upon almanacs, newspapers, advertisements, cards, dice, and pamphlets containing less than six sheets of paper. These imposts are all various, according to the nature of the things stamped, rising gradually from a penny to ten pounds. This is also attacks, which though in some instances it may be heavily felt, by greatly increasing the expense of all mercantile as well as legal proceedings, yet if moderately imposed, is of service to the public in general by authenticating instruments and rendering it much more difficult than formally to forge deeds of any standing, since as the officers of this branch of the revenue vary their stamps frequently, by marks perceptible to none but themselves, a man that would forge a deed of King William's time must know and be able to counterfeit the stamp of that date also. In France and some other countries the duty is laid on the contract itself, not on the instrument in which it is contained, but this draws the subject into a thousand nice disquisitions and disputes concerning the nature of his contract, and whether taxable or not, in which the farmers of the revenue are sure to have the advantage. More method answers the purpose of the state as well, and consults the ease of the subject much better. The first institutions of the stamp duties was by statute five and six William and Mary C. twenty-one, and they have since in many instances been increased to five times their original amount. 6. A sixth branch is the duty upon houses and windows. As early as the conquest, mention is made in doomsday book, a fumage or fudge, vulgarly called smoke farthings, which were paid by custom to the king for every chimney in the house. And we read that Edward the Black Prince, soon after his successes in France, in imitation of the English custom, imposed attacks of a florin upon every hearth in his French dominions. But the first parliamentary establishment of it in England was by statute thirteen and fourteenth Charles II, C. ten, whereby an hereditary revenue of two shillings for every hearth, in all houses paying to church and poor, was granted to the king forever. And by subsequent statutes, for the more regular assessment of this tax, the constable and two other substantial inhabitants of the parish, to be appointed yearly, were, once in every year, empowered to view the inside of every house in the parish. By statute one William and Mary, statute one C. ten, hearth-money was declared to be not only a great impression to the poor sort, but a badge of slavery upon the whole people, exposing every man's house to be entered into, and searched at pleasure, by persons unknown to him, and therefore to erect a lasting monument of their majesty's goodness in every house in the kingdom, the duty of hearth-money was taken away and abolished. This monument of goodness remains among us to this day, but the prospect of it was somewhat darkened when, in six years afterwards, by statute seven William III, C. eighteen, a tax was laid upon all houses, except cottages, of two shillings, now advanced to three shillings per house, and a tax also upon all windows if they exceed nine in such house. Which rates have been from time to time varied, particularly by statutes twenty George II, C. III, and thirty-one George II, C. 22, and power was given to surveyors, appointed by the crown, to inspect the outside of houses, and also to pass through any house two days in the year into any court or yard to inspect the windows there. Seven The seventh branch of the extraordinary perpetual revenue is the duty arising from licenses to hackney coaches and chairs in London, and the parts adjacent. In 1654, two hundred hackney coaches were allowed within London, Westminster, and six miles round, under the direction of the Court of Alderman. By statute thirteen and fourteen, Charles II, C. II, four hundred were licensed, and the money arising thereby was applied to repairing the streets. This number was increased to seven hundred by statute five, William and Mary, C. 22, and the duties vested in the crown, and by the statute nine and C. 23, and other subsequent statutes, there are now eight hundred licensed coaches and four hundred chairs. This revenue was governed by commissioners of its own, and is in truth a benefit to the subject, as the expense of it is felt by no individual, and its necessary regulations have established a competent jurisdiction, whereby a very refractory race of men may be kept in some tolerable order. End of Section 33. Section 34 Part 5 of Chapter 8 of the Commentaries on the Laws of England, Book 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Commentaries on the Laws of England by William Blackstone. Book 1. Chapter 8. Part 5. 8. The eighth and last branch of the king's extraordinary perpetual revenue is the duty upon offices and pensions, consisting in a payment of one shilling in the pound, over and above all other duties, out of salaries, fees, and perquisites of offices and pensions payable by the crown. This highly popular taxation was imposed by statute 31st George II, C. 22, and is under the direction of the commissioners of the land tax. The clear, neat produce of these several branches of the revenue, after all charges of collecting and management paid, amounts annually to about seven millions and three-quarters sterling, besides two millions and a quarter raised annually, at an average, by the land and malt tax. How these immense sums are appropriated is next to be considered, and this is, first and principally, to the payment of the interest of the national debt. In order to take a clear and comprehensive view of the nature of this national debt, it must first be premised that after the revolution, when our new connections with Europe introduced a new system of foreign politics, the expenses of the nation not only in settling the new establishment, but in maintaining long wars as principles on the continent, for the security of the Dutch barrier, reducing the French monarchy, settling the Spanish succession, supporting the House of Austria, maintaining the liberties of the Germanic body and other purposes increased to an unusual degree, in so much that it was not thought advisable to raise all the expenses of any one year by taxes to be levied within that year, lest the unaccustomed weight of them should create murmurs among the people. It was therefore the policy of the times to anticipate the revenues of their posterity by borrowing immense sums for the current service of the state, and to lay no more taxes upon the subject than would suffice to pay the annual interest of the sum so borrowed by this means converting the principal debt into a new species of property, transferable from one man to another at any time and in any quantity. A system which seems to have had its original in the state of Florence, A.D. 1344, which government then owed about sixty thousand pounds sterling, and being unable to pay it formed the principal into an aggregate sum, called metaphorically a mount or bank, the shares where I worked transferrable like our stocks, with interest at five percent. The price is varying according to the extinguishes of the state. This laid the foundation of what is called the national debt, for a few long annuities created in the reign of Charles II will hardly deserve that name. And the example, then said, has been so closely followed during the long wars in the reign of Queen Anne, and since the capital of the national debt, funded and unfunded, are mounted in January 1765 upwards of one hundred and forty-five million pounds sterling, to pay the interest of which, and the charges for management, amounting annually to about four millions and three quarters. The revenues just enumerated are in the first place mortgaged, and made perpetual by parliament. Perpetual, I say, but still redeemable by the same authority that imposed them, which, if at any time can pay off the capital, will abolish those taxes which are raised to discharge the interest. By this means the quantity of property in the kingdom is greatly increased in idea, compared with former times, yet if we coolly consider it, not at all increased in reality. We may boast of large fortunes and quantities of money in the funds, but where does this money exist? It exists only in name, in paper, in public faith, in parliamentary security, and that is undoubtedly sufficient for the creditors of the public to rely on. But then what is the pledge which the public faith has pawned for the security of these debts? The land, the trade, and the personal industry of the subject, from which the money must arise that supplies the several taxes. In these, therefore, and these only, the property of the public creditors does really and intrinsically exist, and of course the land, the trade, and the personal industry of individuals are diminished in their true value just so much as they are pledged to answer. If A's income amounts to one hundred pounds per annum, and he is so far indebted to be, that he pays him fifty pounds per annum for his interest, one half of the value of A's property is transferred to be the creditor. The creditor's property exists in the demand which he has upon the debtor and nowhere else, and the debtor is only a trustee to his creditor for one half of the value of his income. In short, the property of a creditor of the public consists in a certain portion of the national taxes. By how much, therefore, he is the richer, by so much the nation which pays these taxes is the poorer. The only advantage that can result to a nation from public debts is the increase of circulation by multiplying the cash of the kingdom and creating a new species of money, always ready to be employed in any beneficial undertaking, by means of its transferable quality, and yet productive of some profit even when it lies idle and unemployed. A certain proportion of debt seems, therefore, to be highly useful to a trading people, but what that proportion is, it is not for me to determine. This much is undisputably certain, that the present magnitude of our national incumbrances very far exceeds all calculations of commercial benefit, and is productive of the greatest inconveniences. For first, the enormous taxes that are raised upon the necessaries of life for the payment of the interest of this debt are a hurt both to trade and manufacturers, by raising the price as well of the artificer's subsistence, as of the raw material and, of course, in a much greater proportion, the price of the commodity itself. Secondly, if part of this debt be owing to foreigners, either they draw out of the kingdom annually a considerable quantity of species for the interest, or else it is made an argument to grant them unreasonable privileges in order to induce them to reside here. Thirdly, if the whole be owing to subjects only, it is then charging the active and industrious subject who pays his share of the taxes to maintain the indolent and idle creditor who receives them. Lastly, and principally, it weakens the internal strength of a state by anticipating those resources which should be reserved to defend it in case of necessity. The interest we now pay for our debts would be nearly sufficient to maintain any war that any national motives could require. And if our ancestors in King William's time had annually paid, so long as their extenuities lasted, even a less sum than we now annually raise upon their accounts, they would in the time of war have borne no greater burdens than they have bequeathed to and settled upon their posterity in time of peace, and might have been eased the instant the exigence was over. The produce of the several taxes before mentioned were originally separate and distinct funds, being securities for the sums advanced on each several tax, and for them only. But at last it became necessary, in order to avoid confusion, as they multiplied yearly, to reduce the number of these separate funds by uniting and blending them together, super-adding the faith of Parliament for the general security of the whole. So that there are now only three capital funds of any account, the aggregate fund and the general fund, so-called from such union and addition, and the South Sea fund, being the produce of the taxes appropriated to pay the interest of such part of the national debt, as was advanced by that company and its annucients, whereby the separate funds, which were thus united, are become mutual securities for each other, and the whole produce of them, thus aggregated, is liable to pay such interest or annuities as were formally charged upon each distinct fund, the faith of the legislature being more overengaged to supply any casual deficiencies. The customs, excises, and other taxes which are to support these funds, depending on contingencies upon exports, imports, and consumptions, must necessarily be of a very uncertain amount, but they have always been considerably more than was sufficient to answer the charge upon them. The surplus is therefore of the three great national funds, the aggregate, general, and South Sea funds, over and above the interest and annuities charged upon them, are directed by statute Third George I, C7, to be carried together, and to attend the disposition of parliament, and are usually denominated the sinking fund, because originally destined to sink and lower the national debt. To this have since been added many other entire duties, granted in subsequent years, and the annual interest of the sums borrowed and their respective credits is charged on and payable out of the produce of the sinking fund. However, the neat surpluses and savings, after all deductions paid, amount annually to a very considerable sum, particularly in the year ending at Christmas, 1764, to about two millions and a quarter. Four, as the interest on the national debt has been at several times reduced by the consent of the proprietors, who had their option either to lower their interest or repaid their principle, the savings from the appropriated revenues must needs be extremely large. This sinking fund is the last resort of the nation, on which alone depend all the hopes we can ever entertain of discharging or moderating our encumbrances. And therefore the prudent application of the large sums now arising from this fund is a point of the utmost importance and well worth the serious attention of parliament, which has thereby been enabled in this present year, 1765, to reduce above two millions sterling of the public debt. But before any part of the aggregate fund, the surpluses whereof are one of the chief ingredients that form the sinking fund, can be applied to diminish the principle of the public debt. It stands mortgaged by parliament to raise an annual sum for the maintenance of the king's household and the civil list. For this purpose, in the late rains, the produce of certain branches of the excise and customs, the post office, the duty on wine licenses, the revenues of the remaining crown lands, the profits arising from courts of justice, which articles include all the hereditary revenues of the crown, and also a clear annuity of 120,000 pounds sterling in money, were settled on the king for life, for the support of his majesty's household and the honour and dignity of the crown. And as the amount of these several branches was uncertain, though in the last rain they were generally computed to raise almost a million, if they did not arise annually to 800,000 pounds, the parliament engaged to make up the deficiency. But his present majesty having, soon after his accession, spontaneously signified his consent that his own hereditary revenues might be so disposed of as might best conduce to the utility and satisfaction of the public, and having graciously accepted the limited sum of 800,000 pounds per annum for the support of his civil list, and that also charged with three life annuities, to the princess of Wales, the Duke of Cumberland, and the Princess Amelie, to the amount of seventy-seven thousand pounds, the said hereditary and other revenues are now carried into and made a part of the aggregate fund, and the aggregate fund is charged with the payment of the whole annuity to the crown of 800,000 pounds per annum. Hereby the revenues themselves, being put under the same care and management as the other branches of the public patrimony, will produce more and be better collected than here to four, and the public is a gainer of upwards of 100,000 pounds per annum by this disinterested bounty of his majesty. The civil list, thus liquidated, together with the four millions and three quarters interest of the national debt, and the two millions and a quarter produced from the sinking fund, make up the seven millions and three quarters per annum, neat money, which were before stated to be the annual produce of our perpetual taxes. Besides the immense, though uncertain sums arising from the annual taxes on land and malt, but which at an average may be calculated at more than two millions and a quarter, and added to the preceding sum make the clear produce of the taxes exclusive of the charge of collecting, which are raised yearly on the people of this country, and returned into the king's exchequer amount to upwards of ten million sterling. The expenses defrayed by the civil list are those that in any shape relate to civil government, as the expenses of the household, all salaries to officers of state, to the judges, and every of the king's servants, the appointments to foreign ambassadors, the maintenance of the royal family, the king's private expenses, or privy purse, and other very numerous outgoings as secret service money, pensions, and other bounties, which sometimes have so far exceeded the revenues appointed for that purpose, that application has been made to parliament to discharge the debts contracted on the civil list, as particularly in 1724, when one million was granted for that purpose by the statute 11th George I, C. 17. The civil list is indeed properly the whole of the king's revenue in his own distinct capacity, the rest being rather the revenue of the public or its creditors, though collected and distributed again in the name and by the officers of the crown. It now standing in the same place as the hereditary income did formerly, and, as that has gradually diminished, the parliamentary appointments have increased. The whole revenue of Queen Elizabeth did not amount to more than six hundred thousand pounds per year. That of King Charles was eight hundred thousand pounds, and the revenue voted for King Charles II was one million two hundred thousand pounds, though it never, in fact, amounted to quite so much. But it must be observed that under these sums were included all manner of public expenses, among which Lord Clarendon, in his speech to the parliament, computed that the charge of the navy and land forces amounted annually to eight hundred thousand pounds, which was ten times more than before the former troubles. The same revenue, subject to the same charges, was settled on King James II, but by the increase of trade and more frugal management, it amounted on an average to a million and a half per annum, besides other additional customs granted by the parliament, which produced an annual revenue of four hundred thousand pounds sterling, out of which his fleet and army were maintained at the yearly expense of one million one hundred thousand pounds sterling. After the revolution, when parliament took into its own hands the annual support of the forces, both maritime and military, a civil list revenue was settled on the new king and queen, amounting, with the hereditary duties, to seven hundred thousand pounds per annum. And the same was continued to Queen Anne and King George I. That of King George II, we have seen, was nominally augmented to eight hundred thousand pounds, and in fact was considerably more. But that of his present majesty is expressly limited to that sum, and by reason of the charges upon it amounts at present to little more than seven hundred thousand pounds sterling. And upon the whole it is doubtless much better for the crown, and also for the people, to have the revenue settled upon the modern footing rather than the ancient. For the crown, because it is more certain and collected with greater ease, for the people because they are now delivered from the feudal hardships and other odious branches of the prerogative. And though complaints have sometimes been made of the increase of the civil list, yet if we consider the sums that have been formerly granted, the limited extent under which it is now established, the revenues and prerogatives given up in lieu of it by the crown, and above all the diminution of the value of money compared with what it was worth in the last century, we must acknowledge these complaints to be void of any rational foundation, and that it is impossible to support that dignity which a King of Great Britain should maintain with an income in any degree less than what it is now established by Parliament. This finishes our inquiries into the fiscal prerogatives of the King, or his revenue, both ordinary and extraordinary. We have therefore now chalked out all the principal outlines of this vast title of the law, the Supreme Executive Magistrate, or the King's Majesty, considered in his several capacities and points of view. But before we entirely dismiss this subject, it may not be improper to take a short comparative view of the power of the Executive Magistrate, or prerogative of the crown, as it stood in former days and as it stands at present. And we cannot but observe that most of the laws for ascertaining, limiting, and restraining this prerogative have been made within the compass of little more than a century past, from the petition of right in Third Charles I to the present time, so that the powers of the crown are now to all appearances greatly curtailed and diminished since the reign of King James I, particularly by the abolition of the Star Chamber in high-commission courts in the reign of Charles I, and by the disclaiming of martial law, and the power of levying taxes on the subject by the same prince, by the disuse of forest laws for a century past, and by the many excellent provisions enacted under Charles II, especially the abolition of military tenures, pervance, and preemption, the habeas corpus act, and the act to prevent the discontinuance of parliaments for above three years, and, since the revolution, by the strong and emphatical words in which our liberties are asserted in the Bill of Rights, and act of settlement, by the act for triennial, since turned into septennial elections, by the exclusion of certain officers from the House of Commons, by rendering the seats of the judges permanent and their salaries independent, and by restraining the King's pardon from operating on parliamentary impeachments. Besides all this, if we consider how the crown is impoverished and stripped of all its ancient revenues, so that it greatly depends on the liberality of parliament for its necessary support and maintenance, we may perhaps be led to think that the balance is inclined pretty strongly to the popular scale, and that the executive magistrate has neither independence nor power enough left to form that check upon the lords and commons which the founders of our constitution intended. But, on the other hand, it is to be considered that every prince in the first parliament after his accession has by long usage a truly royal addition to his hereditary revenue settled upon him for his life, and has never any occasion to apply to parliament for supplies, but upon some public necessity of the whole realm. This restores to him that constitutional independence, which at his first accession seems it must be owned to be wanting. And then, with regard to power, we may find perhaps that the hands of government are at least sufficiently strengthened, and that an English monarch is now in no danger of being overborn by either the nobility or the people. The instruments of power are not perhaps so open and avowedly as they formerly were, and therefore are the less liable to jealous and invidious reflection, but they are not the weaker upon that account. In short, our national debt and taxes, besides the inconveniences before mentioned, have also, in their natural consequence, thrown such a weight of power into the executive scale of government as we cannot think was intended by our patriot ancestors who gloriously struggled for the abolition of the then-formidable parts of the prerogative, and by an unaccountable want of foresight established this system in their stead. The entire collection and management of so vast a revenue, being placed in the hands of the crown, have given rise to such a multitude of new officers, created by and removable at the royal pleasure, that they have extended the influence of government to every corner of the nation. Witness the commissioners and the multitude of dependents on the customs in every port of the kingdom, the commissioners of excise and their numerous subalterns in every inland district, the postmasters and their servants planted in every town and upon every public road, the commissioners of the stamps and their distributors, which are full as scattered and full as numerous, the officers of the salt duty, which, though a species of excise and conducted in the same manner, are yet made a distinct core from the ordinary managers of that revenue, the surveyors of houses and windows, the receivers of the land tax, the managers of lotteries, and the commissioners of Hackney Coaches, all which are either immediately or immediately appointed by the crown and removable at pleasure without any reason assigned. These, it requires but little penetration to see, must give that power, on which they depend for subsistence and influence most amazingly extensive. To this may be added the frequent opportunities of conferring particular obligations by preference in loans, subscriptions, tickets, remittances, and other money transactions, which will greatly increase this influence, and that over those persons whose attachment on account of their wealth is frequently the most desirable. All this is the natural, though perhaps the unforeseen consequence of erecting our funds of credit, and to support them establishing our present perpetual taxes, the whole of which is entirely new since the restoration in 1660 and by far the greatest part since the revolution in 1688. And the same may be said with regard to the officers in our numerous army and the places which the army has created. All which put together gives the executive power, so persuasive and energy with respect to the persons themselves, and so prevailing in interest with their friends and families, as will amply make amends for the loss of external prerogative. But, though this profusion of officers should have no effect on individuals, there is still another newly acquired branch of power, and that is not the influence only, but the force of a disciplined army, paid indeed ultimately by the people, but immediately by the crown, raised by the crown, officers by the crown, commanded by the crown. They are kept on foot, it is true only from year to year, and that by the power of parliament, but during that year they must, by the nature of our constitution, if raised at all, be at the absolute disposal of the crown. And there need but few words to demonstrate how great a trust is thereby reposed in the prince by his people. A trust that is more than equivalent to a thousand little troublesome prerogatives. Add to all this that, besides the civil list, the immense revenue of seven million sterling, which is annually paid to the creditors of the public, or carried to the sinking fund, is first deposited in the Royal Exchequer, and then issued out to the respective offices of payment. This revenue the people can never refuse to raise, because it is made perpetual by act of parliament, which also, when well considered, will appear to be a trust of great delicacy and high importance. Upon the whole, therefore, I think it is clear that whatever may have become of the nominal, the real power of the crown, has not been too far weakened by any transactions in the last century. Much is indeed given up, but much is also acquired. The stern commands of prerogative have yielded to the milder voice of influence. The slavish and exploded doctrine of non-resistance has given way to a military establishment by law, and to the disuse of parliaments has succeeded a parliamentary trust of an immense perpetual revenue. When, indeed, by the free operation of the sinking fund, our national debts shall be lessened, when the posture of foreign affairs and the universal introduction of a well-planned and national militia will suffer our formidable army to be thinned and regulated, and when, in consequence of all, our taxes shall be gradually reduced, this adventurous power of the crown will slowly and imperceptibly diminish, as it slowly and imperceptibly rose. But till that shall happen it will be our special duty, as good subjects and good Englishmen, to reverence the crown, and yet guard against corrupt and servile influence from those who are entrusted with its authority, to be loyal yet free, obedient and yet independent, and above everything to hope that we may long, very long, continue to be governed by a sovereign, who in all these public acts that have personally proceeded from himself, hath manifested the highest veneration for the free constitution of Britain, hath already, in more than one instance, remarkably strengthened its outworks, and will therefore never harbor a thought or adopt a persuasion in any way the remotest degree detrimental to public liberty. End of section 34