heir is generally made the manager or committee of the eftate, In this cafe of idiots and lunatics the civil law agrees with ours; by affigning them tutors to protect their perfons, and curators to manage their eftates. But in another inftance the Roman law goes much beyond the English. For, if a man by notorious prodigality was in danger of wafting his estate, he was looked upon as non compos, and committed to the care of curators or tutors by the praetor". And by the laws of Solon fuch 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 feems to be very questionable. It was doubtless an excellent method of benefiting the individual, and of preferving estates in families; but it hardly feems calculated for the genius of a free nation, who claim and exercise the liberty of using their own property as they please. "Sic utere tuo, ut alienum "non laedas," is the only restriction our laws have given with regard to oeconomical prudence. And the frequent circulation and transfer of lands and other property, which cannot be effected without extravagance fomewhere, are perhaps not a little conducive towards keeping our mixed conftitution in it's due health and vigour. THIS may fuffice 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 eftates in the kingdom, that have not, at some period or other fince the u Solent. praetores, fi talem bominem invenerint, qui neque tempus neque finem expenfarum babet, fed bona fua dilacerando et diffipando profundit, curatorem ei dare, exemplo furiofi: et tamdiu erunt ambo in 2 curatione, quamdiu vel furiofus fanitatem, Norman [306] K 14 Norman conqueft, been vested in the hands of the king by forfeiture, efcheat, or otherwife. But, fortunately for the liberty of the fubject, this hereditary landed revenue, by a feries of improvident management, is funk almost to nothing; and the cafual profits, arifing from the other branches of the cenfus regalis, are likewife almoft all of them alienated from the crown. In order to fupply the deficiencies of which, we are now obliged to have recourse to new methods of raifing money, unknown to our early ancestors; which methods conftitute the king's extraordinary revenue. For, the public patrimony being got into the hands of private fubjects, it is but reasonable that private contributions fhould fupply the public fervice. Which, though it may perhaps fall harder upon fome individuals, whofe ancestors have had no fhare in the general plunder, than upon others, yet, taking the nation throughout, it amounts to nearly the fame; provided the gain by the extraordinary, fhould appear to be no greater than the lofs by the ordinary, revenue. And, perhaps, if every gen[307]tleman in the kingdom was to be stripped of such of his lands as were formerly the property of the crown; was to be again fubject to the inconveniencies of purveyance and pre-emption, the oppreffion of foreft laws, and the slavery of feodal tenures; and was to refign into the king's hands all his royal franchifes of waifs, wrecks, eftrays, treasure-trove, mines, deodands, forfeitures, and the like; he would find himself a greater loser, than by paying his quota to fuch taxes, as are neceflary to the fupport of government. The thing therefore to be wifhed and aimed at in a land of liberty is by no means the total abolition of taxes, which would draw after it very pernicious confequences, and the very fuppofition of which is the height of political abfurdity. For as the true idea of government and magiftracy will be found to consist in this, that some few men are deputed by many others to prefide over public affairs, fo that individuals may the better be enabled to attend their private concerns; it is neceffary that those individuals fhould be bound to contribute a portion of their private gains, in order to fupport that government, and reward that magistracy, which protects them in the enjoyment of their respective properties. properties. But the things to be aimed at are wisdom and moderation, not only in granting, but alfo in the method of raising the neceffary fupplies; by contriving to do both in such a manner as may be most conducive to the national welfare, and at the fame time most consistent with oeconomy and the liberty of the subject; who, when properly taxed, contributes only, as was before obferved y, fome part of his property, in order to enjoy the reft. THESE extraordinary grants are usually called by the fynonymous names of aids, fubfidies, and fupplies; and are granted, we have formerlyfeen 2, by the commons of Great Britain in parliament affembled: who, when they have voted a fupply to his majesty, and fettled the quantum of that fupply, ufually refolve themselves into what is called a committee of ways and means, to confider the ways and means of raifing the fupply fo voted. And in this committee every member (though it is looked upon as the peculiar province [ 308 ] of the chancellor of the exchequer) may propofe fuch scheme of taxation as he thinks will be leaft detrimental to the public. The refolutions of this committee, when approved by a vote of the house, are in general esteemed to be (as it were) final and conclufive. For, though the supply cannot be actually raised upon the subject till directed by an act of the whole parliament, yet no monied man will scruple to advance to the government any quantity of ready cash, on the credit of a bare vote of the houfe of commons, though no law be yet paffed to establish it. THE taxes, which are raifed upon the subject, are either annual or perpetual. The ufual annual taxes are those upon land and malt. I. THE land tax, in it's modern fhape, has fuperfeded all the former methods of rating either property, or perfons in respect of their property, whether by tenths or fifteenths, fubfidies on land, hydages, fcutages, or talliages; a fhort explication of which will however greatly affist us in understanding our antient laws and history. y page 282. 2 page 159. TENTHS, Book 1, TENTHS, and fifteenths, were temporary aids iffuing out of perfonal 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; when fuch moveables, or personal estates, were a very different and a much lefs confiderable thing than what they ufually are at this day. Tenths are faid to have been firft granted under Henry the fe cond, who took advantage of the fashionable zeal for croifades to introduce this new taxation, in order to defray the expence of a pious expedition to Palestine, which he really or feemingly had projected against Saladine emperor of the Sa racens; whence it was originally denominated the Saladine tenth. But afterwards fifteenths were more ufually granted than tenths. Originally the amount of these taxes was un309 certain, being levied by affeffments new made at every fresh grant of the commons, a commiffion for which is preserved by Matthew Paris: but it was at length reduced to a cer tainty in the eighth year of Edward III, when, by virtue of the king's commiflion, 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 29000 I. and therefore it still kept up the name of a fifteenth, when, by the alteration of the value of money and the increase of perfonal property, things came to be in a very different fituation. So that when, of later years, the commons granted the king a fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew their proportion of it; that is, the fame identical fum that was affeffed by the fame aid in the eighth of Edward III; and then raifed it by a rate among themselves, and returned it into the royal exchequer. THE other antient levies 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 a 2 Inft. 77. 4 Inft. 34. b Hoved. A. D. 1183. Carte. 1. 719. Hume. i. 329. c A. D. 1232. d See the fecond book of these commentaries. every tenant of a knight's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend the king in his army for forty days in every year. But this perfonal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the tenants found means of compounding for it, by first fending others in their stead, and in process of time by making a pecuniary fatisfaction to the crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary fatisfaction at laft came to be levied by affeffments, at fo much for every knight's fee, under the name of fcutages; which appear to have been levied for the first time in the fifth year of Henry the second, on account of his expedition to Toulouse, and were then (I apprehend) mere arbitrary compofitions, as the king and the subject could agree. But this precedent being afterwards abused into a means of [ 310 ] oppreffion, (in levying fcutages on the landholders by the royal authority only, whenever our kings went to war, in order to hire mercenary troops and pay their contingent expences) it became thereupon a matter of national complaint; and king John was obliged to promife in his magna carta®, that no fcutage should be impofed without the confent of the common council of the realm. This claufe was indeed omitted in the charters of Henry III, where we only find it ftipulated, that fcutages fhould be taken as they were used to be in the time of king Henry the fecond. Yet afterwards, by a variety of statutes under Edward I. and his grandson 3, it was provided, that the king fhall not take any aids or tasks, any talliage or tax, but by the common affent of the great men and commons in parliament. Of the fame nature with fcutages upon knights-fees were the affeffments of hydage upon all other lands, and of talliage upon cities and burghs". But they all gradually fell into difufe upon the introduction of fubfidies, about the time of king Richard II and king Henry IV. Thefe were a tax, not immediately imposed upon property, but upon perfons in re fpect of their reputed eftates, after the nominal rate of 4 s. in |