But if politics had never called in the aid of religion, had the

conquering party never adopted the tenets of one sect more than those of

another, when it had gained the victory, it would probably have dealt

equally and impartially with all the different sects, and have allowed

every man to choose his own priest, and his own religion, as he thought

proper. There would, and, in this case, no doubt, have been, a great

multitude of religious sects. Almost every different congregation might

probably have had a little sect by itself, or have entertained some

peculiar tenets of its own. Each teacher, would, no doubt, have felt

himself under the necessity of making the utmost exertion, and of using

every art, both to preserve and to increase the number of his disciples.

But as every other teacher would have felt himself under the same

necessity, the success of no one teacher, or sect of teachers, could

have been very great. The interested and active zeal of religious

teachers can be dangerous and troublesome only where there is either but

one sect tolerated in the society, or where the whole of a large society

is divided into two or three great sects; the teachers of each acting by

concert, and under a regular discipline and subordination. But that zeal

must be altogether innocent, where the society is divided into two or

three hundred, or, perhaps, into as many thousand small sects, of which

no one could be considerable enough to disturb the public tranquillity.

The teachers of each sect, seeing themselves surrounded on all sides

with more adversaries than friends, would be obliged to learn that

candour and moderation which are so seldom to be found among the

teachers of those great sects, whose tenets, being supported by the

civil magistrate, are held in veneration by almost all the inhabitants

of extensive kingdoms and empires, and who, therefore, see nothing round

them but followers, disciples, and humble admirers. The teachers of each

little sect, finding themselves almost alone, would be obliged to

respect those of almost every other sect; and the concessions which they

would mutually find in both convenient and agreeable to make one to

another, might in time, probably reduce the doctrine of the greater part

of them to that pure and rational religion, free from every mixture of

absurdity, imposture, or fanaticism, such as wise men have, in all ages

of the world, wished to see established; but such as positive law has,

perhaps, never yet established, and probably never will establish in any

country; because, with regard to religion, positive law always has been,

and probably always will be, more or less influenced by popular

superstition and enthusiasm. This plan of ecclesiastical government, or,

more properly, of no ecclesiastical government, was what the sect called

Independents (a sect, no doubt, of very wild enthusiasts), proposed to

establish in England towards the end of the civil war. If it had been

established, though of a very unphilosophical origin, it would probably,

by this time, have been productive of the most philosophical good temper

and moderation with regard to every sort of religious principle. It has

been established in Pennsylvania, where, though the quakers happen to be

the most numerous, the law, in reality, favours no one sect more than

another; and it is there said to have been productive of this

philosophical good temper and moderation.

But though this equality of treatment should not be productive of this

good temper and moderation in all, or even in the greater part of the

religious sects of a particular country; yet, provided those sects were

sufficiently numerous, and each of them consequently too small to

disturb the public tranquillity, the excessive zeal of each for its

particular tenets could not well be productive of any very hurtful

effects, but, on the contrary, of several good ones; and if the

government was perfectly decided, both to let them all alone, and to

oblige them all to let alone one another, there is little danger that

they would not of their own accord, subdivide themselves fast enough, so

as soon to become sufficiently numerous.

In every civilized society, in every society where the distinction of

ranks has once been completely established, there have been always two

different schemes or systems of morality current at the same time; of

which the one may be called the strict or austere; the other the

liberal, or, if you will, the loose system. The former is generally

admired and revered by the common people; the latter is commonly more

esteemed and adopted by what are called the people of fashion. The

degree of disapprobation with which we ought to mark the vices of

levity, the vices which are apt to arise from great prosperity, and from

the excess of gaiety and good humour, seems to constitute the principal

distinction between those two opposite schemes or systems. In the

liberal or loose system, luxury, wanton, and even disorderly mirth, the

pursuit of pleasure to some degree of intemperance, the breach of

chastity, at least in one of the two sexes, &c. provided they are not

accompanied with gross indecency, and do not lead to falsehood and

injustice, are generally treated with a good deal of indulgence, and are

easily either excused or pardoned altogether. In the austere system, on

the contrary, those excesses are regarded with the utmost abhorrence and

detestation. The vices of levity are always ruinous to the common

people, and a single week's thoughtlessness and dissipation is often

sufficient to undo a poor workman for ever, and to drive him, through

despair, upon committing the most enormous crimes. The wiser and better

sort of the common people, therefore, have always the utmost abhorrence

and detestation of such excesses, which their experience tells them are

so immediately fatal to people of their condition. The disorder and

extravagance of several years, on the contrary, will not always ruin a

man of fashion; and people of that rank are very apt to consider the

power of indulging in some degree of excess, as one of the advantages of

their fortune; and the liberty of doing so without censure or reproach,

as one of the privileges which belong to their station. In people of

their own station, therefore, they regard such excesses with but a small

degree of disapprobation, and censure them either very slightly or not

at all.

Almost all religious sects have begun among the common people, from whom

they have generally drawn their earliest, as well as their most numerous

proselytes. The austere system of morality has, accordingly, been

adopted by those sects almost constantly, or with very few exceptions;

for there have been some. It was the system by which they could best

recommend themselves to that order of people, to whom they first

proposed their plan of reformation upon what had been before

established. Many of them, perhaps the greater part of them, have even

endeavoured to gain credit by refining upon this austere system, and by

carrying it to some degree of folly and extravagance; and this excessive

rigour has frequently recommended them, more than any thing else, to the

respect and veneration of the common people.

A man of rank and fortune is, by his station, the distinguished member

of a great society, who attend to every part of his conduct, and who

thereby oblige him to attend to every part of it himself. His authority

and consideration depend very much upon the respect which this society

bears to him. He dares not do any thing which would disgrace or

discredit him in it; and he is obliged to a very strict observation of

that species of morals, whether liberal or austere, which the general

consent of this society prescribes to persons of his rank and fortune. A

man of low condition, on the contrary, is far from being a distinguished

member of any great society. While he remains in a country village, his

conduct may be attended to, and he may be obliged to attend to it

himself. In this situation, and in this situation only, he may have what

is called a character to lose. But as soon as he comes into a great

city, he is sunk in obscurity and darkness. His conduct is observed and

attended to by nobody; and he is, therefore, very likely to neglect it

himself, and to abandon himself to every sort of low profligacy and

vice. He never emerges so effectually from this obscurity, his conduct

never excites so much the attention of any respectable society, as by

his becoming the member of a small religious sect. He from that moment

acquires a degree of consideration which he never had before. All his

brother sectaries are, for the credit of the sect, interested to observe

his conduct; and, if he gives occasion to any scandal, if he deviates

very much from those austere morals which they almost always require of

one another, to punish him by what is always a very severe punishment,

even where no evil effects attend it, expulsion or excommunication from

the sect. In little religious sects, accordingly, the morals of the

common people have been almost always remarkably regular and orderly;

generally much more so than in the established church. The morals of

those little sects, indeed, have frequently been rather disagreeably

rigorous and unsocial.

There are two very easy and effectual remedies, however, by whose joint

operation the state might, without violence, correct whatever was

unsocial or disagreeably rigorous in the morals of all the little sects

into which the country was divided.

The first of those remedies is the study of science and philosophy,

which the state might render almost universal among all people of

middling or more than middling rank and fortune; not by giving salaries

to teachers in order to make them negligent and idle, but by instituting

some sort of probation, even in the higher and more difficult sciences,

to be undergone by every person before he was permitted to exercise any

liberal profession, or before he could be received as a candidate for

any honourable office, of trust or profit. If the state imposed upon

this order of men the necessity of learning, it would have no occasion

to give itself any trouble about providing them with proper teachers.

They would soon find better teachers for themselves, than any whom the

state could provide for them. Science is the great antidote to the

poison of enthusiasm and superstition; and where all the superior ranks

of people were secured from it, the inferior ranks could not be much

exposed to it.

The second of those remedies is the frequency and gaiety of public

diversions. The state, by encouraging, that is, by giving entire liberty

to all those who, from their own interest, would attempt, without

scandal or indecency, to amuse and divert the people by painting,

poetry, music, dancing; by all sorts of dramatic representations and

exhibitions; would easily dissipate, in the greater part of them, that

melancholy and gloomy humour which is almost always the nurse of popular

superstition and enthusiasm. Public diversions have always been the

objects of dread and hatred to all the fanatical promoters of those

popular frenzies. The gaiety and good humour which those diversions

inspire, were altogether inconsistent with that temper of mind which was

fittest for their purpose, or which they could best work upon. Dramatic

representations, besides, frequently exposing their artifices to public

ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were, upon that

account, more than all other diversions, the objects of their peculiar

abhorrence.

In a country where the law favoured the teachers of no one religion more

than those of another, it would not be necessary that any of them should

have any particular or immediate dependency upon the sovereign or

executive power; or that he should have any thing to do either in

appointing or in dismissing them from their offices. In such a

situation, he would have no occasion to give himself any concern about

them, further than to keep the peace among them, in the same manner as

among the rest of his subjects, that is, to hinder them from

persecuting, abusing, or oppressing one another. But it is quite

otherwise in countries where there is an established or governing

religion. The sovereign can in this case never be secure, unless he has

the means of influencing in a considerable degree the greater part of

the teachers of that religion.

The clergy of every established church constitute a great incorporation.

They can act in concert, and pursue their interest upon one plan, and

with one spirit as much as if they were under the direction of one man;

and they are frequently, too, under such direction. Their interest as an

incorporated body is never the same with that of the sovereign, and is

sometimes directly opposite to it. Their great interest is to maintain

their authority with the people, and this authority depends upon the

supposed certainty and importance of the whole doctrine which they

inculcate, and upon the supposed necessity of adopting every part of it

with the most implicit faith, in order to avoid eternal misery. Should

the sovereign have the imprudence to appear either to deride, or doubt

himself of the most trifling part of their doctrine, or from humanity,

attempt to protect those who did either the one or the other, the

punctilious honour of a clergy, who have no sort of dependency upon him,

is immediately provoked to proscribe him as a profane person, and to

employ all the terrors of religion, in order to oblige the people to

transfer their allegiance to some more orthodox and obedient prince.

Should he oppose any of their pretensions or usurpations, the danger is

equally great. The princes who have dared in this manner to rebel

against the church, over and above this crime of rebellion, have

generally been charged, too, with the additional crime of heresy,

notwithstanding their solemn protestations of their faith, and humble

submission to every tenet which she thought proper to prescribe to them.

But the authority of religion is superior to every other authority. The

fears which it suggests conquer all other fears. When the authorized

teachers of religion propagate through the great body of the people,

doctrines subversive of the authority of the sovereign, it is by

violence only, or by the force of a standing army, that he can maintain

his authority. Even a standing army cannot in this case give him any

lasting security; because if the soldiers are not foreigners, which can

seldom be the case, but drawn from the great body of the people, which

must almost always be the case, they are likely to be soon corrupted by

those very doctrines. The revolutions which the turbulence of the Greek

clergy was continually occasioning at Constantinople, as long as the

eastern empire subsisted; the convulsions which, during the course of

several centuries, the turbulence of the Roman clergy was continually

occasioning in every part of Europe, sufficiently demonstrate how

precarious and insecure must always be the situation of the sovereign,

who has no proper means of influencing the clergy of the established and

governing religion of his country.

Articles of faith, as well as all other spiritual matters, it is evident

enough, are not within the proper department of a temporal sovereign,

who, though he may be very well qualified for protecting, is seldom

supposed to be so for instructing the people. With regard to such

matters, therefore, his authority can seldom be sufficient to

counterbalance the united authority of the clergy of the established

church. The public tranquillity, however, and his own security, may

frequently depend upon the doctrines which they may think proper to

propagate concerning such matters. As he can seldom directly oppose

their decision, therefore, with proper weight and authority, it is

necessary that he should be able to influence it; and he can influence

it only by the fears and expectations which he may excite in the greater

part of the individuals of the order. Those fears and expectations may

consist in the fear of deprivation or other punishment, and in the

expectation of further preferment.

In all Christian churches, the benefices of the clergy are a sort of

freeholds, which they enjoy, not during pleasure, but during life or

good behaviour. If they held them by a more precarious tenure, and were

liable to be turned out upon every slight disobligation either of the

sovereign or of his ministers, it would perhaps be impossible for them

to maintain their authority with the people, who would then consider

them as mercenary dependents upon the court, in the sincerity of whose

instructions they could no longer have any confidence. But should the

sovereign attempt irregularly, and by violence, to deprive any number of

clergymen of their freeholds, on account, perhaps, of their having

propagated, with more than ordinary zeal, some factious or seditious

doctrine, he would only render, by such persecution, both them and their

doctrine ten times more popular, and therefore ten times more

troublesome and dangerous, than they had been before. Fear is in almost

all cases a wretched instrument of government, and ought in particular

never to be employed against any order of men who have the smallest

pretensions to independency. To attempt to terrify them, serves only to

irritate their bad humour, and to confirm them in an opposition, which

more gentle usage, perhaps, might easily induce them either to soften,

or to lay aside altogether. The violence which the French government

usually employed in order to oblige all their parliaments, or sovereign

courts of justice, to enregister any unpopular edict, very seldom

succeeded. The means commonly employed, however, the imprisonment of all

the refractory members, one would think, were forcible enough. The

princes of the house of Stuart sometimes employed the like means in

order to influence some of the members of the parliament of England, and

they generally found them equally intractable. The parliament of England

is now managed in another manner; and a very small experiment, which the

duke of Choiseul made, about twelve years ago, upon the parliament of

Paris, demonstrated sufficiently that all the parliaments of France

might have been managed still more easily in the same manner. That

experiment was not pursued. For though management and persuasion are

always the easiest and safest instruments of government as force and

violence are the worst and the most dangerous; yet such, it seems, is

the natural insolence of man, that he almost always disdains to use the

good instrument, except when he cannot or dare not use the bad one. The

French government could and durst use force, and therefore disdained to

use management and persuasion. But there is no order of men, it appears

I believe, from the experience of all ages, upon whom it is so dangerous

or rather so perfectly ruinous, to employ force and violence, as upon

the respected clergy of an established church. The rights, the

privileges, the personal liberty of every individual ecclesiastic, who

is upon good terms with his own order, are, even in the most despotic

governments, more respected than those of any other person of nearly

equal rank and fortune. It is so in every gradation of despotism, from

that of the gentle and mild government of Paris, to that of the violent

and furious government of Constantinople. But though this order of men

can scarce ever be forced, they may be managed as easily as any other;

and the security of the sovereign, as well as the public tranquillity,

seems to depend very much upon the means which he has of managing them;

and those means seem to consist altogether in the preferment which he

has to bestow upon them.

In the ancient constitution of the Christian church, the bishop of each

diocese was elected by the joint votes of the clergy and of the people

of the episcopal city. The people did not long retain their right of

election; and while they did retain it, they almost always acted under

the influence of the clergy, who, in such spiritual matters, appeared to

be their natural guides. The clergy, however, soon grew weary of the

trouble of managing them, and found it easier to elect their own bishops

themselves. The abbot, in the same manner, was elected by the monks of

the monastery, at least in the greater part of abbacies. All the

inferior ecclesiastical benefices comprehended within the diocese were

collated by the bishop, who bestowed them upon such ecclesiastics as he

thought proper. All church preferments were in this manner in the

disposal of the church. The sovereign, though he might have some

indirect influence in those elections, and though it was sometimes usual

to ask both his consent to elect, and his approbation of the election,

yet had no direct or sufficient means of managing the clergy. The

ambition of every clergyman naturally led him to pay court, not so much

to his sovereign as to his own order, from which only he could expect

preferment.

Through the greater part of Europe, the pope gradually drew to himself,

first the collation of almost all bishoprics and abbacies, or of what

were called consistorial benefices, and afterwards, by various

machinations and pretences, of the greater part of inferior benefices

comprehended within each diocese, little more being left to the bishop

than what was barely necessary to give him a decent authority with his

own clergy. By this arrangement the condition of the sovereign was still

worse than it bad been before. The clergy of all the different countries

of Europe were thus formed into a sort of spiritual army, dispersed in

different quarters, indeed, but of which all the movements and

operations could now be directed by one head, and conducted upon one

uniform plan. The clergy of each particular country might be considered

as a particular detachment of that army, of which the operations could

easily be supported and seconded by all the other detachments quartered

in the different countries round about. Each detachment was not only

independent of the sovereign of the country in which it was quartered,

and by which it was maintained, but dependent upon a foreign sovereign,

who could at any time turn its arms against the sovereign of that

particular country, and support them by the arms of all the other

detachments.

Those arms were the most formidable that can well be imagined. In the

ancient state of Europe, before the establishment of arts and

manufactures, the wealth of the clergy gave them the same sort of

influence over the common people which that of the great barons gave

them over their respective vassals, tenants, and retainers. In the great

landed estates, which the mistaken piety both of princes and private

persons had bestowed upon the church, jurisdictions were established, of

the same kind with those of the great barons, and for the same reason.

In those great landed estates, the clergy, or their bailiffs, could

easily keep the peace, without the support or assistance either of the

king or of any other person; and neither the king nor any other person

could keep the peace there without the support and assistance of the

clergy. The jurisdictions of the clergy, therefore, in their particular

baronies or manors, were equally independent, and equally exclusive of

the authority of the king's courts, as those of the great temporal

lords. The tenants of the clergy were, like those of the great barons,

almost all tenants at will, entirely dependent upon their immediate

lords, and, therefore, liable to be called out at pleasure, in order to

fight in any quarrel in which the clergy might think proper to engage

them. Over and above the rents of those estates, the clergy possessed in

the tithes a very large portion of the rents of all the other estates in

every kingdom of Europe. The revenues arising from both those species of

rents were, the greater part of them, paid in kind, in corn, wine,

cattle, poultry, &c. The quantity exceeded greatly what the clergy could

themselves consume; and there were neither arts nor manufactures, for

the produce of which they could exchange the surplus. The clergy could

derive advantage from this immense surplus in no other way than by

employing it, as the great barons employed the like surplus of their

revenues, in the most profuse hospitality, and in the most extensive

charity. Both the hospitality and the charity of the ancient clergy,

accordingly, are said to have been very great. They not only maintained

almost the whole poor of every kingdom, but many knights and gentlemen

had frequently no other means of subsistence than by travelling about

from monastery to monastery, under pretence of devotion, but in reality

to enjoy the hospitality of the clergy. The retainers of some particular

prelates were often as numerous as those of the greatest lay-lords; and

the retainers of all the clergy taken together were, perhaps, more

numerous than those of all the lay-lords. There was always much more

union among the clergy than among the lay-lords. The former were under a

regular discipline and subordination to the papal authority. The latter

were under no regular discipline or subordination, but almost always

equally jealous of one another, and of the king. Though the tenants and

retainers of the clergy, therefore, had both together been less numerous

than those of the great lay-lords, and their tenants were probably much

less numerous, yet their union would have rendered them more formidable.

The hospitality and charity of the clergy, too, not only gave them the

command of a great temporal force, but increased very much the weight of

their spiritual weapons. Those virtues procured them the highest respect

and veneration among all the inferior ranks of people, of whom many were

constantly, and almost all occasionally, fed by them. Every thing

belonging or related to so popular an order, its possessions, its

privileges, its doctrines, necessarily appeared sacred in the eyes of

the common people; and every violation of them, whether real or

pretended, the highest act of sacrilegious wickedness and profaneness.

In this state of things, if the sovereign frequently found it difficult

to resist the confederacy of a few of the great nobility, we cannot

wonder that he should find it still more so to resist the united force

of the clergy of his own dominions, supported by that of the clergy of

all the neighbouring dominions. In such circumstances, the wonder is,

not that he was sometimes obliged to yield, but that he ever was able to

resist.

The privileges of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us, who

live in the present times, appear the most absurd), their total

exemption from the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England

was called the benefit of clergy, were the natural, or rather the

necessary, consequences of this state of things. How dangerous must it

have been for the sovereign to attempt to punish a clergyman for any

crime whatever, if his order were disposed to protect him, and to

represent either the proof as insufficient for convicting so holy a man,

or the punishment as too severe to be inflicted upon one whose person

had been rendered sacred by religion? The sovereign could, in such

circumstances, do no better than leave him to be tried by the

ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own order, were

interested to restrain, as much as possible, every member of it from

committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such gross

scandal as might disgust the minds of the people.

In the state in which things were, through the greater part of Europe,

during the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, and for

some time both before and after that period, the constitution of the

church of Rome may be considered as the must formidable combination that

ever was formed against the authority and security of civil government,

as well as against the liberty, reason, and happiness of mankind, which

can flourish only where civil government is able to protect them. In

that constitution, the grossest delusions of superstition were supported

in such a manner by the private interests of so great a number of

people, as put them out of all danger from any assault of human reason;

because, though human reason might, perhaps, have been able to unveil,

even to the eyes of the common people, some of the delusions of

superstition, it could never have dissolved the ties of private

interest. Had this constitution been attacked by no other enemies but

the feeble efforts of human reason, it must have endured for ever. But

that immense and well-built fabric, which all the wisdom and virtue of

man could never have shaken, much less have overturned, was, by the

natural course of things, first weakened, and afterwards in part

destroyed; and is now likely, in the course of a few centuries more,

perhaps, to crumble into ruins altogether.

The gradual improvements of arts, manufactures, and commerce, the same

causes which destroyed the power of the grant barons, destroyed, in the

same manner, through the greater part of Europe, the whole temporal

power of the clergy. In the produce of arts, manufactures, and commerce,

the clergy, like the great barons, found something for which they could

exchange their rude produce, and thereby discovered the means of

spending their whole revenues upon their own persons, without giving any

considerable share of them to other people. Their charity became

gradually less extensive, their hospitality less liberal, or less

profuse. Their retainers became consequently less numerous, and, by

degrees, dwindled away altogether. The clergy, too, like the great

barons, wished to get a better rent from their landed estates, in order

to spend it, in the same manner, upon the gratification of their own

private vanity and folly. But this increase of rent could be got only by

granting leases to their tenants, who thereby became, in a great

measure, independent of them. The ties of interest, which bound the

inferior ranks of people to the clergy, were in this manner gradually

broken and dissolved. They were even broken and dissolved sooner than

those which bound the same ranks of people to the great barons; because

the benefices of the church being, the greater part of them, much

smaller than the estates of the great barons, the possessor of each

benefice was much sooner able to spend the whole of its revenue upon his

own person. During the greater part of the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries, the power of the great barons was, through the greater part

of Europe, in full vigour. But the temporal power of the clergy, the

absolute command which they had once had over the great body of the

people was very much decayed. The power of the church was, by that time,

very nearly reduced, through the greater part of Europe, to what arose

from their spiritual authority; and even that spiritual authority was

much weakened, when it ceased to be supported by the charity and

hospitality of the clergy. The inferior ranks of people no longer looked

upon that order as they had done before; as the comforters of their

distress, and the relievers of their indigence. On the contrary, they

were provoked and disgusted by the vanity, luxury, and expense of the

richer clergy, who appeared to spend upon their own pleasures what had

always before been regarded as the patrimony of the poor.

In this situation of things, the sovereigns in the different states of

Europe endeavoured to recover the influence which they had once had in

the disposal of the great benefices of the church; by procuring to the

deans and chapters of each diocese the restoration of their ancient

right of electing the bishop; and to the monks of each abbacy that of

electing the abbot. The reestablishing this ancient order was the object

of several statutes enacted in England during the course of the

fourteenth century, particularly of what is called the statute of

provisors; and of the pragmatic sanction, established in France in the

fifteenth century. In order to render the election valid, it was

necessary that the sovereign should both consent to it before hand, and

afterwards approve of the person elected; and though the election was

still supposed to be free, he had, however all the indirect means which

his situation necessarily afforded him, of influencing the clergy in his

own dominions. Other regulations, of a similar tendency, were

established in other parts of Europe. But the power of the pope, in the

collation of the great benefices of the church, seems, before the

reformation, to have been nowhere so effectually and so universally

restrained as in France and England. The concordat afterwards, in the

sixteenth century, gave to the kings of France the absolute right of

presenting to all the great, or what are called the consistorial,

benefices of the Gallican church.

Since the establishment of the pragmatic sanction and of the concordat,

the clergy of France have, in general shewn less respect to the decrees

of the papal court, than the clergy of any other catholic country. In

all the disputes which their sovereign has had with the pope, they have

almost constantly taken part with the former. This independency of the

clergy of France upon the court of Rome seems to be principally founded

upon the pragmatic sanction and the concordat. In the earlier periods of

the monarchy, the clergy of France appear to have been as much devoted

to the pope as those of any other country. When Robert, the second

prince of the Capetian race, was most unjustly excommunicated by the

court of Rome, his own servants, it is said, threw the victuals which

came from his table to the dogs, and refused to taste any thing

themselves which had been polluted by the contact of a person in his

situation. They were taught to do so, it may very safely be presumed, by

the clergy of his own dominions.

The claim of collating to the great benefices of the church, a claim in

defence of which the court of Rome had frequently shaken, and sometimes

overturned, the thrones of some of the greatest sovereigns in

Christendom, was in this manner either restrained or modified, or given

up altogether, in many different parts of Europe, even before the time

of the reformation. As the clergy had now less influence over the

people, so the state had more influence over the clergy. The clergy,

therefore, had both less power, and less inclination, to disturb the

state.

The authority of the church of Rome was in this state of declension,

when the disputes which gave birth to the reformation began in Germany,

and soon spread themselves through every part of Europe. The new

doctrines were everywhere received with a high degree of popular favour.

They were propagated with all that enthusiastic zeal which commonly

animates the spirit of party, when it attacks established authority. The

teachers of those doctrines, though perhaps, in other respects, not more

learned than many of the divines who defended the established church,

seem in general to have been better acquainted with ecclesiastical

history, and with the origin and progress of that system of opinions

upon which the authority of the church was established; and they had

thereby the advantage in almost every dispute. The austerity of their

manners gave them authority with the common people, who contrasted the

strict regularity of their conduct with the disorderly lives of the

greater part of their own clergy. They possessed, too, in a much higher

degree than their adversaries, all the arts of popularity and of gaining

proselytes; arts which the lofty and dignified sons of the church had

long neglected, as being to them in a great measure useless. The reason

of the new doctrines recommended them to some, their novelty to many;

the hatred and contempt of the established clergy to a still greater

number: but the zealous, passionate, and fanatical, though frequently

coarse and rustic eloquence, with which they were almost everywhere

inculcated, recommended them to by far the greatest number.

The success of the new doctrines was almost everywhere so great, that

the princes, who at that time happened to be on bad terms with the court

of Rome, were, by means of them, easily enabled, in their own dominions,

to overturn the church, which having lost the respect and veneration of

the inferior ranks of people, could make scarce any resistance. The

court of Rome had disobliged some of the smaller princes in the northern

parts of Germany, whom it had probably considered as too insignificant

to be worth the managing. They universally, therefore, established the

reformation in their own dominions. The tyranny of Christiern II., and

of Troll archbishop of Upsal, enabled Gustavus Vasa to expel them both

from Sweden. The pope favoured the tyrant and the archbishop, and

Gustavus Vasa found no difficulty in establishing the reformation in

Sweden. Christiern II. was afterwards deposed from the throne of

Denmark, where his conduct had rendered him as odious as in Sweden. The

pope, however, was still disposed to favour him; and Frederic of

Holstein, who had mounted the throne in his stead, revenged himself, by

following the example of Gustavus Vasa. The magistrates of Berne and

Zurich, who had no particular quarrel with the pope, established with

great ease the reformation in their respective cantons, where just

before some of the clergy had, by an imposture somewhat grosser than

ordinary, rendered the whole order both odious and contemptible.

In this critical situation of its affairs the papal court was at

sufficient pains to cultivate the friendship of the powerful sovereigns

of France and Spain, of whom the latter was at that time emperor of

Germany. With their assistance, it was enabled, though not without great

difficulty, and much bloodshed, either to suppress altogether, or

obstruct very much, the progress of the reformation in their dominions.

It was well enough inclined, too, to be complaisant to the king of

England. But from the circumstances of the times, it could not be so

without giving offense to a still greater sovereign, Charles V., king of

Spain and emperor of Germany. Henry VIII., accordingly, though he did

not embrace himself the greater part of the doctrines of the reformation

was yet enabled, by their general prevalence, to suppress all the

monasteries, and to abolish the authority of the church of Rome in his

dominions. That he should go so far, though he went no further, gave

some satisfaction to the patrons of the reformation, who, having got

possession of the government in the reign of his son and successor,

completed, without any difficulty, the work which Henry VIII. had

begun.

In some countries, as in Scotland, where the government was weak,

unpopular, and not very firmly established, the reformation was strong

enough to overturn, not only the church, but the state likewise, for

attempting to support the church.

Among the followers of the reformation, dispersed in all the different

countries of Europe, there was no general tribunal, which, like that of

the court of Rome, or an oecumenical council, could settle all

disputes among them, and, with irresistible authority, prescribe to all

of them the precise limits of orthodoxy. When the followers of the

reformation in one country, therefore, happened to differ from their

brethren in another, as they had no common judge to appeal to, the

dispute could never be decided; and many such disputes arose among them.

Those concerning the government of the church, and the right of

conferring ecclesiastical benefices, were perhaps the most interesting

to the peace and welfare of civil society. They gave birth, accordingly,

to the two principal parties or sects among the followers of the

reformation, the Lutheran and Calvinistic sects, the only sects among

them, of which the doctrine and discipline have ever yet been

established by law in any part of Europe.

The followers of Luther, together with what is called the church of

England, preserved more or less of the episcopal government, established

subordination among the clergy, gave the sovereign the disposal of all

the bishoprics, and other consistorial benefices within his dominions,

and thereby rendered him the real head of the church; and without

depriving the bishop of the right of collating to the smaller benefices

within his diocese, they, even to those benefices, not only admitted,

but favoured the right of presentation, both in the sovereign and in all

other lay patrons. This system of church government was, from the

beginning, favourable to peace and good order, and to submission to the

civil sovereign. It has never, accordingly, been the occasion of any

tumult or civil commotion in any country in which it has once been

established. The church of England, in particular, has always valued

herself, with great reason, upon the unexceptionable loyalty of her

principles. Under such a government, the clergy naturally endeavour to

recommend themselves to the sovereign, to the court, and to the nobility

and gentry of the country, by whose influence they chiefly expect to

obtain preferment. They pay court to those patrons, sometimes, no doubt,

by the vilest flattery and assentation; but frequently, too, by

cultivating all those arts which best deserve, and which are therefore

most likely to gain them, the esteem of people of rank and fortune; by

their knowledge in all the different branches of useful and ornamental

learning, by the decent liberality of their manners, by the social good

humour of their conversation, and by their avowed contempt of those

absurd and hypocritical austerities which fanatics inculcate and pretend

to practise, in order to draw upon themselves the veneration, and upon

the greater part of men of rank and fortune, who avow that they do not

practise them, the abhorrence of the common people. Such a clergy,

however, while they pay their court in this manner to the higher ranks

of life, are very apt to neglect altogether the means of maintaining

their influence and authority with the lower. They are listened to,

esteemed, and respected by their superiors; but before their inferiors

they are frequently incapable of defending, effectually, and to the

conviction of such hearers, their own sober and moderate doctrines,

against the most ignorant enthusiast who chooses to attack them.

The followers of Zuinglius, or more properly those of Calvin, on the

contrary, bestowed upon the people of each parish, whenever the church

became vacant, the right of electing their own pastor; and established,

at the same time, the most perfect equality among the clergy. The former

part of this institution, as long as it remained in vigour, seems to

have been productive of nothing but disorder and confusion, and to have

tended equally to corrupt the morals both of the clergy and of the

people. The latter part seems never to have had any effects but what

were perfectly agreeable.

As long as the people of each parish preserved the right of electing

their own pastors, they acted almost always under the influence of the

clergy, and generally of the most factious and fanatical of the order.

The clergy, in order to preserve their influence in those popular

elections, became, or affected to become, many of them, fanatics

themselves, encouraged fanaticism among the people, and gave the

preference almost always to the most fanatical candidate. So small a

matter as the appointment of a parish priest, occasioned almost always a

violent contest, not only in one parish, but in all the neighbouring

parishes who seldom failed to take part in the quarrel. When the parish

happened to be situated in a great city, it divided all the inhabitants

into two parties; and when that city happened, either to constitute

itself a little republic, or to be the head and capital of a little

republic, as in the case with many of the considerable cities in

Switzerland and Holland, every paltry dispute of this kind, over and

above exasperating the animosity of all their other factions, threatened

to leave behind it, both a new schism in the church, and a new faction

in the state. In those small republics, therefore, the magistrate very

soon found it necessary, for the sake of preserving the public peace, to

assume to himself the right of presenting to all vacant benefices. In

Scotland, the most extensive country in which this presbyterian form of

church government has ever been established, the rights of patronage

were in effect abolished by the act which established presbytery in the

beginning of the reign of William III. That act, at least, put in the

power of certain classes of people in each parish to purchase, for a

very small price, the right of electing their own pastor. The

constitution which this act established, was allowed to subsist for

about two-and-twenty years, but was abolished by the 10th of queen Anne,

ch. 12, on account of the confusions and disorders which this more

popular mode of election had almost everywhere occasioned. In so

extensive a country as Scotland, however, a tumult in a remote parish

was not so likely to give disturbance to government as in a smaller

state. The 10th of queen Anne restored the rights of patronage. But

though, in Scotland, the law gives the benefice, without any exception

to the person presented by the patron; yet the church requires sometimes

(for she has not in this respect been very uniform in her decisions) a

certain concurrence of the people, before she will confer upon the

presentee what is called the cure of souls, or the ecclesiastical

jurisdiction in the parish. She sometimes, at least, from an affected

concern for the peace of the parish, delays the settlement till this

concurrence can be procured. The private tampering of some of the

neighbouring clergy, sometimes to procure, but more frequently to

prevent this concurrence, and the popular arts which they cultivate, in

order to enable them upon such occasions to tamper more effectually, are

perhaps the causes which principally keep up whatever remains of the old

fanatical spirit, either in the clergy or in the people of Scotland.

The equality which the presbyterian form of church government

establishes among the clergy, consists, first, in the equality of

authority or ecclesiastical jurisdiction; and, secondly, in the equality

of benefice. In all presbyterian churches, the equality of authority is

perfect; that of benefice is not so. The difference, however, between

one benefice and another, is seldom so considerable, as commonly to

tempt the possessor even of the small one to pay court to his patron, by

the vile arts of flattery and assentation, in order to get a better. In

all the presbyterian churches, where the rights of patronage are

thoroughly established, it is by nobler and better arts, that the

established clergy in general endeavour to gain the favour of their

superiors; by their learning, by the irreproachable regularity of their

life, and by the faithful and diligent discharge of their duty. Their

patrons even frequently complain of the independency of their spirit,

which they are apt to construe into ingratitude for past favours, but

which, at worst, perhaps, is seldom any more than that indifference

which naturally arises from the consciousness that no further favours of

the kind are ever to be expected. There is scarce, perhaps, to be found

anywhere in Europe, a more learned, decent, independent, and respectable

set of men, than the greater part of the presbyterian clergy of Holland,

Geneva, Switzerland, and Scotland.

Where the church benefices are all nearly equal, none of them can be

very great; and this mediocrity of benefice, though it may be, no doubt,

carried too far, has, however, some very agreeable effects. Nothing but

exemplary morals can give dignity to a man of small fortune. The vices

of levity and vanity necessarily render him ridiculous, and are,

besides, almost as ruinous to him as they are to the common people. In

his own conduct, therefore, he is obliged to follow that system of

morals which the common people respect the most. He gains their esteem

and affection, by that plan of life which his own interest and situation

would lead him to follow. The common people look upon him with that

kindness with which we naturally regard one who approaches somewhat to

our own condition, but who, we think, ought to be in a higher. Their

kindness naturally provokes his kindness. He becomes careful to instruct

them, and attentive to assist and relieve them. He does not even despise

the prejudices of people who are disposed to be so favourable to him,

and never treats them with those contemptuous and arrogant airs, which

we so often meet with in the proud dignitaries of opulent and well

endowed churches. The presbyterian clergy, accordingly, have more

influence over the minds of the common people, than perhaps the clergy

of any other established church. It is, accordingly, in presbyterian

countries only, that we ever find the common people converted, without

persecution completely, and almost to a man, to the established church.

In countries where church benefices are, the greater part of them, very

moderate, a chair in a university is generally a better establishment

than a church benefice. The universities have, in this case, the picking

and chusing of their members from all the churchmen of the country, who,

in every country, constitute by far the most numerous class of men of

letters. Where church benefices, on the contrary, are many of them very

considerable, the church naturally draws from the universities the

greater part of their eminent men of letters; who generally find some

patron, who does himself honour by procuring them church preferment. In

the former situation, we are likely to find the universities filled

with the most eminent men of letters that are to be found in the

country. In the latter, we are likely to find few eminent men among

them, and those few among the youngest members of the society, who are

likely, too, to be drained away from it, before they can have acquired

experience and knowledge enough to be of much use to it. It is observed

by Mr. de Voltaire, that father Poree, a jesuit of no great eminence in

the republic of letters, was the only professor they had ever had in

France, whose works were worth the reading. In a country which has

produced so many eminent men of letters, it must appear somewhat

singular, that scarce one of them should have been a professor in a

university. The famous Cassendi was, in the beginning of his life, a

professor in the university of Aix. Upon the first dawning of his

genius, it was represented to him, that by going into the church he

could easily find a much more quiet and comfortable subsistence, as well

as a better situation for pursuing his studies; and he immediately

followed the advice. The observation of Mr. de Voltaire may be applied,

I believe, not only to France, but to all other Roman Catholic

countries. We very rarely find in any of them an eminent man of letters,

who is a professor in a university, except, perhaps, in the professions

of law and physic; professions from which the church is not so likely to

draw them. After the church of Rome, that of England is by far the

richest and best endowed church in Christendom. In England, accordingly,

the church is continually draining the universities of all their best

and ablest members; and an old college tutor who is known and

distinguished in Europe as an eminent man of letters, is as rarely to be

found there as in any Roman catholic country. In Geneva, on the

contrary, in the protestant cantons of Switzerland, in the protestant

countries of Germany, in Holland, in Scotland, in Sweden, and Denmark,

the most eminent men of letters whom those countries have produced,

have, not all indeed, but the far greater part of them, been professors

in universities. In those countries, the universities are continually

draining the church of all its most eminent men of letters.

It may, perhaps, be worth while to remark, that, if we except the poets,

a few orators, and a few historians, the far greater part of the other

eminent men of letters, both of Greece and Rome, appear to have been

either public or private teachers; generally either of philosophy or of

rhetoric. This remark will be found to hold true, from the days of

Lysias and Isocrates, of Plato and Aristotle, down to those of Plutarch

and Epictetus, Suetonius, and Quintilian. To impose upon any man the

necessity of teaching, year after year, in any particular branch of

science seems in reality to be the most effectual method for rendering

him completely master of it himself. By being obliged to go every year

over the same ground, if he is good for any thing, he necessarily

becomes, in a few years, well acquainted with every part of it: and if,

upon any particular point, he should form too hasty an opinion one year,

when he comes, in the course of his lectures to reconsider the same

subject the year thereafter, he is very likely to correct it. As to be a

teacher of science is certainly the natural employment of a mere man of

letters; so is it likewise, perhaps, the education which is most likely

to render him a man of solid learning and knowledge. The mediocrity of

church benefices naturally tends to draw the greater part of men of

letters in the country where it takes place, to the employment in which

they can be the most useful to the public, and at the same time to give

them the best education, perhaps, they are capable of receiving. It

tends to render their learning both as solid as possible, and as useful

as possible.

The revenue of every established church, such parts of it excepted as

may arise from particular lands or manors, is a branch, it ought to be

observed, of the general revenue of the state, which is thus diverted to

a purpose very different from the defence of the state. The tithe, for

example, is a real land-tax, which puts it out of the power of the

proprietors of land to contribute so largely towards the defence of the

state as they otherwise might be able to do. The rent of land, however,

is, according to some, the sole fund; and, according to others, the

principal fund, from which, in all great monarchies, the exigencies of

the state must be ultimately supplied. The more of this fund that is

given to the church, the less, it is evident, can be spared to the

state. It may be laid down as a certain maxim, that all other things

being supposed equal, the richer the church, the poorer must necessarily

be, either the sovereign on the one hand, or the people on the other;

and, in all cases, the less able must the state be to defend itself. In

several protestant countries, particularly in all the protestant cantons

of Switzerland, the revenue which anciently belonged to the Roman

catholic church, the tithes and church lands, has been found a fund

sufficient, not only to afford competent salaries to the established

clergy, but to defray, with little or no addition, all the other

expenses of the state. The magistrates of the powerful canton of Berne,

in particular, have accumulated, out of the savings from this fund, a

very large sum, supposed to amount to several millions; part of which is

deposited in a public treasure, and part is placed at interest in what

are called the public funds of the different indebted nations of Europe;

chiefly in those of France and Great Britain. What may be the amount of

the whole expense which the church, either of Berne, or of any other

protestant canton, costs the state, I do not pretend to know. By a very

exact account it appears, that, in 1755, the whole revenue of the clergy

of the church of Scotland, including their glebe or church lands, and

the rent of their manses or dwelling-houses, estimated according to a

reasonable valuation, amounted only to L.68,514, 1s. 5-1/12d. This very

moderate revenue affords a decent subsistence to nine hundred and

forty-four ministers. The whole expense of the church, including what is

occasionally laid out for the building and reparation of churches, and

of the manses of ministers, cannot well be supposed to exceed eighty or

eighty-five thousand pounds a-year. The most opulent church in

Christendom does not maintain better the uniformity of faith, the

fervour of devotion, the spirit of order, regularity, and austere

morals, in the great body of the people, than this very poorly endowed

church of Scotland. All the good effects, both civil and religious,

which an established church can be supposed to produce, are produced by

it as completely as by any other. The greater part of the protestant

churches of Switzerland, which, in general, are not better endowed than

the church of Scotland, produce those effects in a still higher degree.

In the greater part of the protestant cantons, there is not a single

person to be found, who does not profess himself to be of the

established church. If he professes himself to be of any other, indeed,

the law obliges him to leave the canton. But so severe, or, rather,

indeed, so oppressive a law, could never have been executed in such free

countries, had not the diligence of the clergy beforehand converted to

the established church the whole body of the people, with the exception

of, perhaps, a few individuals only. In some parts of Switzerland,

accordingly, where, from the accidental union of a protestant and Roman

catholic country, the conversion has not been so complete, both

religions are not only tolerated, but established by law.

The proper performance of every service seems to require, that its pay

or recompence should be, as exactly as possible, proportioned to the

nature of the service. If any service is very much underpaid, it is very

apt to suffer by the meanness and incapacity of the greater part of

those who are employed in it. If it is very much overpaid, it is apt to

suffer, perhaps still more, by their negligence and idleness. A man of a

large revenue, whatever may be his profession, thinks he ought to live

like other men of large revenues; and to spend a great part of his time

in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman, this

train of life not only consumes the time which ought to be employed in

the duties of his function, but in the eyes of the common people,

destroys almost entirely that sanctity of character, which can alone

enable him to perform these duties with proper weight and authority.

PART IV.

_Of the Expense of supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign._

Over and above the expenses necessary for enabling the sovereign to

perform his several duties, a certain expense is requisite for the

support of his dignity. This expense varies, both with the different

periods of improvement, and with the different forms of government.

In an opulent and improved society, where all the different orders of

people are growing every day more expensive in their houses, in their

furniture, in their tables, in their dress, and in their equipage; it

cannot well be expected that the sovereign should alone hold out against

the fashion. He naturally, therefore, or rather necessarily, becomes

more expensive in all those different articles too. His dignity even

seems to require that he should become so.

As, in point of dignity, a monarch is more raised above his subjects

than the chief magistrate of any republic is ever supposed to be above

his fellow-citizens; so a greater expense is necessary for supporting

that higher dignity. We naturally expect more splendour in the court of

a king, than in the mansion-house of a doge or burgo-master.

CONCLUSION.

The expense of defending the society, and that of supporting the dignity

of the chief magistrate, are both laid out for the general benefit of

the whole society. It is reasonable, therefore, that they should be

defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; all the

different members contributing, as nearly as possible, in proportion to

their respective abilities.

The expense of the administration of justice, too, may no doubt be

considered as laid out for the benefit of the whole society. There is no

impropriety, therefore, in its being defrayed by the general

contribution of the whole society. The persons, however, who give

occasion to this expense, are those who, by their injustice in one way

or another, make it necessary to seek redress or protection from the

courts of justice. The persons, again, most immediately benefited by

this expense, are those whom the courts of justice either restore to

their rights, or maintain in their rights. The expense of the

administration of justice, therefore, may very properly be defrayed by

the particular contribution of one or other, or both, of those two

different sets of persons, according as different occasions may require,

that is, by the fees of court. It cannot be necessary to have recourse

to the general contribution of the whole society, except for the

conviction of those criminals who have not themselves any estate or fund

sufficient for paying those fees.

Those local or provincial expenses, of which the benefit is local or

provincial (what is laid out, for example, upon the police of a

particular town or district), ought to be defrayed by a local or

provincial revenue, and ought to be no burden upon the general revenue

of the society. It is unjust that the whole society should contribute

towards an expense, of which the benefit is confined to a part of the

society.

The expense of maintaining good roads and communications is, no doubt,

beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without any

injustice, be defrayed by the general contributions of the whole

society. This expense, however, is most immediately and directly

beneficial to those who travel or carry goods from one place to another,

and to those who consume such goods. The turnpike tolls in England, and

the duties called peages in other countries, lay it altogether upon

those two different sets of people, and thereby discharge the general

revenue of the society from a very considerable burden.

The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction,

is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may,

therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of

the whole society. This expense, however, might, perhaps, with equal

propriety, and even with some advantage, be defrayed altogether by those

who receive the immediate benefit of such education and instruction, or

by the voluntary contribution of those who think they have occasion for

either the one or the other.

When the institutions, or public works, which are beneficial to the

whole society, either cannot be maintained altogether, or are not

maintained altogether, by the contribution of such particular members of

the society as are most immediately benefited by them; the deficiency

must, in most cases, be made up by the general contribution of the whole

society. The general revenue of the society, over and above defraying

the expense of defending the society, and of supporting the dignity of

the chief magistrate, must make up for the deficiency of many particular

branches of revenue. The sources of this general or public revenue, I

shall endeavour to explain in the following chapter.

CHAP. II.

OF THE SOURCES OF THE GENERAL OR PUBLIC REVENUE OF THE SOCIETY.

The revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending the

society and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, but all

the other necessary expenses of government, for which the constitution

of the state has not provided any particular revenue may be drawn,

either, first, from some fund which peculiarly belongs to the sovereign

or commonwealth, and which is independent of the revenue of the people;

or, secondly, from the revenue of the people.

PART I.

_Of the Funds, or Sources, of Revenue, which may peculiarly belong to

the Sovereign or Commonwealth._

The funds, or sources, of revenue, which may peculiarly belong to the

sovereign or commonwealth, must consist, either in stock, or in land.

The sovereign, like any other owner of stock, may derive a revenue from

it, either by employing it himself, or by lending it. His revenue is, in

the one case, profit, in the other interest.

The revenue of a Tartar or Arabian chief consists in profit. It arises

principally from the milk and increase of his own herds and flocks, of

which he himself superintends the management, and is the principal

shepherd or herdsman of his own horde or tribe. It is, however, in this

earliest and rudest state of civil government only, that profit has ever

made the principal part of the public revenue of a monarchical state.

Small republics have sometimes derived a considerable revenue from the

profit of mercantile projects. The republic of Hamburgh is said to do so

from the profits of a public wine-cellar and apothecary's shop.[50] That

state cannot be very great, of which the sovereign has leisure to carry

on the trade of a wine-merchant or an apothecary. The profit of a public

bank has been a source of revenue to more considerable states. It has

been so, not only to Hamburgh, but to Venice and Amsterdam. A revenue of

this kind has even by some people been thought not below the attention

of so great an empire as that of Great Britain. Reckoning the ordinary

dividend of the bank of England at five and a-half per cent., and its

capital at ten millions seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds, the

net annual profit, after paying the expense of management, must amount,

it is said, to five hundred and ninety-two thousand nine hundred pounds.

Government, it is pretended, could borrow this capital at three per

cent. interest, and, by taking the management of the bank into its own

hands, might make a clear profit of two hundred and sixty-nine thousand

five hundred pounds a-year. The orderly, vigilant, and parsimonious

administration of such aristocracies as those of Venice and Amsterdam,

is extremely proper, it appears from experience, for the management of a

mercantile project of this kind. But whether such a government as that

of England, which, whatever may be its virtues, has never been famous

for good economy; which, in time of peace, has generally conducted

itself with the slothful and negligent profusion that is, perhaps,

natural to monarchies; and, in time of war, has constantly acted with

all the thoughtless extravagance that democracies are apt to fall into,

could be safely trusted with the management of such a project, must at

least be good deal more doubtful.

The post-office is properly a mercantile project. The government

advances the expense of establishing the different offices, and of

buying or hiring the necessary horses or carriages, and is repaid, with

a large profit, by the duties upon what is carried. It is, perhaps, the

only mercantile project which has been successfully managed by, I

believe, every sort of government. The capital to be advanced is not

very considerable. There is no mystery in the business. The returns are

not only certain, but immediate.

Princes, however, have frequently engaged in many other mercantile

projects, and have been willing, like private persons, to mend their

fortunes, by becoming adventurers in the common branches of trade. They

have scarce ever succeeded. The profusion with which the affairs of

princes are always managed, renders it almost impossible that they

should. The agents of a prince regard the wealth of their master as

inexhaustible; are careless at what price they buy, are careless at what

price they sell, are careless at what expense they transport his goods

from one place to another. Those agents frequently live with the

profusion of princes; and sometimes, too, in spite of that profusion,

and by a proper method of making up their accounts, acquire the fortunes

of princes. It was thus, as we are told by Machiavel, that the agents of

Lorenzo of Medicis, not a prince of mean abilities, carried on his

trade. The republic of Florence was several times obliged to pay the

debt into which their extravagance had involved him. He found it

convenient, accordingly to give up the business of merchant, the

business to which his family had originally owed their fortune, and, in

the latter part of his life, to employ both what remained of that

fortune, and the revenue of the state, of which he had the disposal, in

projects and expenses more suitable to his station.

No two characters seem more inconsistent than those of trader and

sovereign. If the trading spirit of the English East India company

renders them very bad sovereigns, the spirit of sovereignty seems to

have rendered them equally bad traders. While they were traders only,

they managed their trade successfully, and were able to pay from their

profits a moderate dividend to the proprietors of their stock. Since

they became sovereigns, with a revenue which, it is said, was originally

more than three millions sterling, they have been obliged to beg the

ordinary assistance of government, in order to avoid immediate

bankruptcy. In their former situation, their servants in India

considered themselves as the clerks of merchants; in their present

situation, those servants consider themselves as the ministers of

sovereigns.

A state may sometimes derive some part of its public revenue from the

interest of money, as well as from the profits of stock. If it has

amassed a treasure, it may lend a part of that treasure, either to

foreign states, or to its own subjects.

The canton of Berne derives a considerable revenue by lending a part of

its treasure to foreign states, that is, by placing it in the public

funds of the different indebted nations of Europe, chiefly in those of

France and England. The security of this revenue must depend, first,

upon the security of the funds in which it is placed, or upon the good

faith of the government which has the management of them; and, secondly,

upon the certainty or probability of the continuance of peace with the

debtor nation. In the case of a war, the very first act of hostility on

the part of the debtor nation might be the forfeiture of the funds of

its creditor. This policy of lending money to foreign states is, so far

as I know peculiar to the canton of Berne.

The city of Hamburgh[51] has established a sort of public pawn-shop,

which lends money to the subjects of the state, upon pledges, at six per

cent. interest. This pawn-shop, or lombard, as it is called, affords a

revenue, it is pretended, to the state, of a hundred and fifty thousand

crowns, which, at four and sixpence the crown, amounts to L.33,750

sterling.

The government of Pennsylvania, without amassing any treasure, invented

a method of lending, not money, indeed, but what is equivalent to money,

to its subjects. By advancing to private people, at interest, and upon

land security to double the value, paper bills of credit, to be redeemed

fifteen years after their date; and, in the mean time, made transferable

from hand to hand, like banknotes, and declared by act of assembly to be

a legal tender in all payments from one inhabitant of the province to

another, it raised a moderate revenue, which went a considerable way

towards defraying an annual expense of about L.4500, the whole ordinary

expense of that frugal and orderly government. The success of an

expedient of this kind must have depended upon three different

circumstances: first, upon the demand for some other instrument of

commerce, besides gold and silver money, or upon the demand for such a

quantity of consumable stock as could not be had without sending abroad

the greater part of their gold and silver money, in order to purchase

it; secondly, upon the good credit of the government which made use of

this expedient; and, thirdly, upon the moderation with which it was

used, the whole value of the paper bills of credit never exceeding that

of the gold and silver money which would have been necessary for

carrying on their circulation, had there been no paper bills of credit.

The same expedient was, upon different occasions, adopted by several

other American colonies; but, from want of this moderation, it produced,

in the greater part of them, much more disorder than conveniency.

The unstable and perishable nature of stock and credit, however, renders

them unfit to be trusted to as the principal funds of that sure, steady,

and permanent revenue, which can alone give security and dignity to

government. The government of no great nation, that was advanced beyond

the shepherd state, seems ever to have derived the greater part of its

public revenue from such sources.

Land is a fund of more stable and permanent nature; and the rent of

public lands, accordingly, has been the principal source of the public

revenue of many a great nation that was much advanced beyond the

shepherd state. From the produce or rent of the public lands, the

ancient republics of Greece and Italy derived for a long time the

greater part of that revenue which defrayed the necessary expenses of

the commonwealth. The rent of the crown lands constituted for a long

time the greater part of the revenue of the ancient sovereigns of

Europe.

War, and the preparation for war, are the two circumstances which, in

modern times, occasion the greater part of the necessary expense of all

great states. But in the ancient republics of Greece and Italy, every

citizen was a soldier, and both served, and prepared himself for

service, at his own expense. Neither of those two circumstances,

therefore, could occasion any very considerable expense to the state.

The rent of a very moderate landed estate might be fully sufficient for

defraying all the other necessary expenses of government.

In the ancient monarchies of Europe, the manners and customs of the

times sufficiently prepared the great body of the people for war; and

when they took the field, they were, by the condition of their feudal

tenures, to be maintained either at their own expense, or at that of

their immediate lords, without bringing any new charge upon the

sovereign. The other expenses of government were, the greater part of

them, very moderate. The administration of justice, it has been shewn,

instead of being a cause of expense was a source of revenue. The labour

of the country people, for three days before, and for three days after,

harvest, was thought a fund sufficient for making and maintaining all

the bridges, highways, and other public works, which the commerce of the

country was supposed to require. In those days the principal expense of

the sovereign seems to have consisted in the maintenance of his own

family and household. The officers of his household, accordingly, were

then the great officers of state. The lord treasurer received his rents.

The lord steward and lord chamberlain looked after the expense of his

family. The care of his stables was committed to the lord constable and

the lord marshal. His houses were all built in the form of castles, and

seem to have been the principal fortresses which he possessed. The

keepers of those houses or castles might be considered as a sort of

military governors. They seem to have been the only military officers

whom it was necessary to maintain in time of peace. In these

circumstances, the rent of a great landed estate might, upon ordinary

occasions, very well defray all the necessary expenses of government.

In the present state of the greater part of the civilized monarchies of

Europe, the rent of all the lands in the country, managed as they

probably would be, if they all belonged to one proprietor, would scarce,

perhaps, amount to the ordinary revenue which they levy upon the people

even in peaceable times. The ordinary revenue of Great Britain, for

example, including not only what is necessary for defraying the current

expense of the year, but for paying the interest of the public debts,

and for sinking a part of the capital of those debts, amounts to upwards

of ten millions a-year. But the land tax, at four shillings in the

pound, falls short of two millions a-year. This land tax, as it is

called, however, is supposed to be one-fifth, not only of the rent of

all the land, but of that of all the houses, and of the interest of all

the capital stock of Great Britain, that part of it only excepted which

is either lent to the public, or employed as farming stock in the

cultivation of land. A very considerable part of the produce of this tax

arises from the rent of houses and the interest of capital stock. The

land tax of the city of London, for example, at four shillings in the

pound, amounts to L.123,399 : 6 : 7; that of the city of Westminster to

L.63,092 : 1 : 5; that of the palaces of Whitehall and St. James's to

L.30,754 : 6 : 3. A certain proportion of the land tax is, in the same

manner, assessed upon all the other cities and towns corporate in the

kingdom; and arises almost altogether, either from the rent of houses,

or from what is supposed to be the interest of trading and capital

stock. According to the estimation, therefore, by which Great Britain is

rated to the land tax, the whole mass of revenue arising from the rent

of all the lands, from that of all the houses, and from the interest of

all the capital stock, that part of it only excepted which is either

lent to the public, or employed in the cultivation of land, does not

exceed ten millions sterling a-year, the ordinary revenue which

government levies upon the people even in peaceable times. The

estimation by which Great Britain is rated to the land tax is, no doubt,

taking the whole kingdom at an average, very much below the real value;

though in several particular counties and districts it is said to be

nearly equal to that value. The rent of the lands alone, exclusive of

that of houses and of the interest of stock, has by many people been

estimated at twenty millions; an estimation made in a great measure at

random, and which, I apprehend, is as likely to be above as below the

truth. But if the lands of Great Britain, in the present state of their

cultivation, do not afford a rent of more than twenty millions a-year,

they could not well afford the half, most probably not the fourth part

of that rent, if they all belonged to a single proprietor, and were put

under the negligent, expensive, and oppressive management of his factors

and agents. The crown lands of Great Britain do not at present afford

the fourth part of the rent which could probably be drawn from them if

they were the property of private persons. If the crown lands were more

extensive, it is probable, they would be still worse managed.

The revenue which the great body of the people derives from land is, in

proportion, not to the rent, but to the produce of the land. The whole

annual produce of the land of every country, if we except what is

reserved for seed, is either annually consumed by the great body of the

people, or exchanged for something else that is consumed by them.

Whatever keeps down the produce of the land below what it would

otherwise rise to, keeps down the revenue of the great body of the

people, still more than it does that of the proprietors of land. The

rent of land, that portion of the produce which belongs to the

proprietors, is scarce anywhere in Great Britain supposed to be more

than a third part of the whole produce. If the land which, in one state

of cultivation, affords a revenue of ten millions sterling a-year, would

in another afford a rent of twenty millions; the rent being, in both

cases, supposed a third part of the produce, the revenue of the

proprietors would be less than it otherwise might be, by ten millions

a-year only; but the revenue of the great body of the people would be

less than it otherwise might be, by thirty millions a-year, deducting

only what would be necessary for seed. The population of the country

would be less by the number of people which thirty millions a-year,

deducting always the seed, could maintain, according to the particular

mode of living, and expense which might take place in the different

ranks of men, among whom the remainder was distributed.

Though there is not at present in Europe, any civilized state of any

kind which derives the greater part of its public revenue from the rent

of lands which are the property of the state; yet, in all the great

monarchies of Europe, there are still many large tracts of land which

belong to the crown. They are generally forest, and sometimes forests

where, after travelling several miles, you will scarce find a single

tree; a mere waste and loss of country, in respect both of produce and

population. In every great monarchy of Europe, the sale of the crown

lands would produce a very large sum of money, which, if applied to the

payment of the public debts, would deliver from mortgage a much greater

revenue than any which those lands have ever afforded to the crown. In

countries where lands, improved and cultivated very highly, and

yielding, at the time of sale, as great a rent as can easily be got from

them, commonly sell at thirty years purchase; the unimproved,

uncultivated, and low-rented crown lands, might well be expected to sell

at forty, fifty, or sixty years purchase. The crown might immediately

enjoy the revenue which this great price would redeem from mortgage. In

the course of a few years, it would probably enjoy another revenue. When

the crown lands had become private property, they would, in the course

of a few years, become well improved and well cultivated. The increase

of their produce would increase the population of the country, by

augmenting the revenue and consumption of the people. But the revenue

which the crown derives from the duties of custom and excise, would

necessarily increase with the revenue and consumption of the people.

The revenue which, in any civilized monarchy, the crown derives from the

crown lands, though it appears to cost nothing to individuals, in

reality costs more to the society than perhaps any other equal revenue

which the crown enjoys. It would, in all cases, be for the interest of

the society, to replace this revenue to the crown by some other equal

revenue, and to divide the lands among the people, which could not well

be done better, perhaps, than by exposing them to public sale.

Lands, for the purposes of pleasure and magnificence, parks, gardens,

public walks, &c. possessions which are everywhere considered as causes

of expense, not as sources of revenue, seem to be the only lands which,

in a great and civilized monarchy, ought to belong to the crown.

Public stock and public lands, therefore, the two sources of revenue

which may peculiarly belong to the sovereign or commonwealth, being both

improper and insufficient funds for defraying the necessary expense of

any great and civilized state; it remains that this expense must, the

greater part of it, be defrayed by taxes of one kind or another; the

people contributing a part of their own private revenue, in order to

make up a public revenue to the sovereign or commonwealth.

PART II.

_Of Taxes._

The private revenue of individuals, it has been shown in the first book

of this Inquiry, arises, ultimately from the three different sources;

rent, profit, and wages. Every tax must finally be paid from some one or

other of those three different sources of revenue, or from all of them

indifferently. I shall endeavour to give the best account I can, first,

of those taxes which, it is intended should fall upon rent; secondly, of

those which, it is intended should fall upon profit; thirdly, of those

which, it is intended should fall upon wages; and fourthly, of those

which, it is intended should fall indifferently upon all those three

different sources of private revenue. The particular consideration of

each of these four different sources of taxes will divide the second

part of the present chapter into four articles, three of which will

require several other subdivisions. Many of these taxes, it will appear

from the following review, are not finally paid from the fund, or source

of revenue, upon which it is intended they should fall.

Before I enter upon the examination of particular taxes, it is necessary

to premise the four following maxims with regard to taxes in general.

1. The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support

of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their

respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they

respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. The expense of

government to the individuals of a great nation, is like the expense of

management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged

to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate.

In the observation or neglect of this maxim, consists what is called the

equality or inequality of taxation. Every tax, it must be observed once

for all, which falls finally upon one only of the three sorts of revenue

above mentioned, is necessarily unequal, in so far as it does not affect

the other two. In the following examination of different taxes, I shall

seldom take much farther notice of this sort of inequality; but shall,

in most cases, confine my observations to that inequality which is

occasioned by a particular tax falling unequally upon that particular

sort of private revenue which is affected by it.

2. The tax which each individual is bound to pay, ought to be certain

and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the

quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor,

and to every other person. Where it is otherwise, every person subject

to the tax is put more or less in the power of the tax-getherer, who can

either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor, or extort, by

the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself.

The uncertainty of taxation encourages the insolence, and favours the

corruption, of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, even where

they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The certainty of what each

individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great

importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I

believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an

evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.

3. Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner, in which

it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it. A tax

upon the rent of land or of houses, payable at the same term at which

such rents are usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most

likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or when he is most

likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods as

are articles of luxury, are all finally paid by the consumer, and

generally in a manner that is very convenient for him. He pays them by

little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods. As he is at

liberty too, either to buy or not to buy, as he pleases, it must be his

own fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniency from such

taxes.

4. Every tax ought to be so contrived, as both to take out and to keep

out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above

what it brings into the public treasury of the state. A tax may either

take out or keep out of the pockets of the people a great deal more than

it brings into the public treasury, in the four following ways. First,

the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries

may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose

perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people. Secondly,

it may obstruct the industry of the people, and discourage them from

applying to certain branches of business which might give maintenance

and employment to great multitudes. While it obliges the people to pay,

it may thus diminish, or perhaps destroy, some of the funds which might

enable them more easily to do so. Thirdly, by the forfeitures and other

penalties which those unfortunate individuals incur, who attempt

unsuccessfully to evade the tax, it may frequently ruin them, and

thereby put an end to the benefit which the community might have

received from the employment of their capitals. An injudicious tax

offers a great temptation to smuggling. But the penalties of smuggling

must arise in proportion to the temptation. The law, contrary to all the

ordinary principles of justice, first creates the temptation, and then

punishes those who yield to it; and it commonly enhances the punishment,

too, in proportion to the very circumstance which ought certainly to

alleviate it, the temptation to commit the crime.[52] Fourthly, by

subjecting the people to the frequent visits and the odious examination

of the tax-gatherers, it may expose them to much unnecessary trouble,

vexation, and oppression; and though vexation is not, strictly speaking,

expense, it is certainly equivalent to the expense at which every man

would be willing to redeem himself from it. It is in some one or other

of these four different ways, that taxes are frequently so much more

burdensome to the people than they are beneficial to the sovereign.

The evident justice and utility of the foregoing maxims have recommended

them, more or less, to the attention of all nations. All nations have

endeavoured, to the best of their judgment, to render their taxes as

equal as they could contrive; as certain, as convenient to the

contributor, both the time and the mode of payment, and in proportion to

the revenue which they brought to the prince, as little burdensome to

the people. The following short review of some of the principal taxes

which have taken place in different ages and countries, will show, that

the endeavours of all nations have not in this respect been equally

successful.

ART. I.--_Taxes upon Rent--Taxes upon the Rent of Land._

A tax upon the rent of land may either be imposed according to a certain

canon, every district being valued at a certain rent, which valuation is

not afterwards to be altered; or it may be imposed in such a manner, as

to vary with every variation in the real rent of the land, and to rise

or fall with the improvement or declaration of its cultivation.

A land tax which, like that of Great Britain, is assessed upon each

district according to a certain invariable canon, though it should be

equal at the time of its first establishment, necessarily becomes

unequal in process of time, according to the unequal degrees of

improvement or neglect in the cultivation of the different parts of the

country. In England, the valuation, according to which the different

counties and parishes were assessed to the land tax by the 4th of

William and Mary, was very unequal even at its first establishment. This

tax, therefore, so far offends against the first of the four maxims

above mentioned. It is perfectly agreeable to the other three. It is

perfectly certain. The time of payment for the tax, being the same as

that for the rent, is as convenient as it can be to the contributor.

Though the landlord is, in all cases, the real contributor, the tax is

commonly advanced by the tenant, to whom the landlord is obliged to

allow it in the payment of the rent. This tax is levied by a much

smaller number of officers than any other which affords nearly the same

revenue. As the tax upon each district does not rise with the rise of

the rent, the sovereign does not share in the profits of the landlord's

improvements. Those improvements sometimes contribute, indeed, to the

discharge of the other landlords of the district. But the aggravation of

the tax, which this may sometimes occasion upon a particular estate, is

always so very small, that it never can discourage those improvements,

nor keep down the produce of the land below what it would otherwise rise

to. As it has no tendency to diminish the quantity, it can have none to

raise the price of that produce. It does not obstruct the industry of

the people; it subjects the landlord to no other inconveniency besides

the unavoidable one of paying the tax.

The advantage, however, which the landlord has derived from the

invariable constancy of the valuation, by which all the lands of Great

Britain are rated to the land-tax, has been principally owing to some

circumstances altogether extraneous to the nature of the tax.

It has been owing in part, to the great prosperity of almost every part

of the country, the rents of almost all the estates of Great Britain

having, since the time when this valuation was first established, been

continually rising, and scarce any of them having fallen. The landlords,

therefore, have almost all gained the difference between the tax which

they would have paid, according to the present rent of their estates,

and that which they actually pay according to the ancient valuation. Had

the state of the country been different, had rents been gradually

falling in consequence of the declension of cultivation, the landlords

would almost all have lost this difference. In the state of things which

has happened to take place since the revolution, the constancy of the

valuation has been advantageous to the landlord and hurtful to the

sovereign. In a different state of things it might have been

advantageous to the sovereign and hurtful to the landlord.

As the tax is made payable in money, so the valuation of the land is

expressed in money. Since the establishment of this valuation, the value

of silver has been pretty uniform, and there has been no alteration in

the standard of the coin, either as to weight or fineness. Had silver

risen considerably in its value, as it seems to have done in the course

of the two centuries which preceded the discovery of the mines of

America, the constancy of the valuation might have proved very

oppressive to the landlord. Had silver fallen considerably in its value,

as it certainly did for about a century at least after the discovery of

those mines, the same constancy of valuation would have reduced very

much this branch of the revenue of the sovereign. Had any considerable

alteration been made in the standard of the money, either by sinking the

same quantity of silver to a lower denomination, or by raising it to a

higher; had an ounce of silver, for example, instead of being coined

into five shillings and two pence, been coined either into pieces which

bore so low a denomination as two shillings and seven pence, or into

pieces which bore so high a one as ten shillings and four pence, it

would, in the one case, have hurt the revenue of the proprietor, in the

other that of the sovereign.

In circumstances, therefore, somewhat different from those which have

actually taken place, this constancy of valuation might have been a very

great inconveniency, either to the contributors or to the commonwealth.

In the course of ages, such circumstances, however, must at some time or

other happen. But though empires, like all the other works of men, have

all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality. Every

constitution, therefore, which it is meant should be as permanent as the

empire itself, ought to be convenient, not in certain circumstances

only, but in all circumstances; or ought to be suited, not to those

circumstances which are transitory, occasional, or accidental, but to

those which are necessary, and therefore always the same.

A tax upon the rent of land, which varies with every variation of the

rent, or which rises and falls according to the improvement or neglect

of cultivation, is recommended by that sect of men of letters in France,

who call themselves the economists, as the most equitable of all taxes.

All taxes, they pretend, fall ultimately upon the rent of land, and

ought, therefore, to be imposed equally upon the fund which must finally

pay them. That all taxes ought to fall as equally as possible upon the

fund which must finally pay them, is certainly true. But without

entering into the disagreeable discussion of the metaphysical arguments

by which they support their very ingenious theory, it will sufficiently

appear, from the following review, what are the taxes which fall finally

upon the rent of the land, and what are those which fall finally upon

some other fund.

In the Venetian territory, all the arable lands which are given in lease

to farmers are taxed at a tenth of the rent.[53] The leases are recorded

in a public register, which is kept by the officers of revenue in each

province or district. When the proprietor cultivates his own lands, they

are valued according to an equitable estimation, and he is allowed a

deduction of one-fifth of the tax; so that for such land he pays only

eight instead of ten per cent. of the supposed rent.

A land-tax of this kind is certainly more equal than the land-tax of

England. It might not, perhaps, be altogether so certain, and the

assessment of the tax might frequently occasion a good deal more trouble

to the landlord. It might, too, be a good deal more expensive in the

levying.

Such a system of administration, however, might, perhaps, be contrived,

as would in a great measure both prevent this uncertainty, and moderate

this expense.

The landlord and tenant, for example, might jointly be obliged to record

their lease in a public register. Proper penalties might be enacted

against concealing or misrepresenting any of the conditions; and if part

of those penalties were to be paid to either of the two parties who

informed against and convicted the other of such concealment or

misrepresentation, it would effectually deter them from combining

together in order to defraud the public revenue. All the conditions of

the lease might be sufficiently known from such a record.

Some landlords, instead of raising the rent, take a fine for the renewal

of the lease. This practice is, in most cases, the expedient of a

spendthrift, who, for a sum of ready money sells a future revenue of

much greater value. It is, in most cases, therefore, hurtful to the

landlord; it is frequently hurtful to the tenant; and it is always

hurtful to the community. It frequently takes from the tenant so great a

part of his capital, and thereby diminishes so much his ability to

cultivate the land, that he finds it more difficult to pay a small rent

than it would otherwise have been to pay a great one. Whatever

diminishes his ability to cultivate, necessarily keeps down, below what

it would otherwise have been, the most important part of the revenue of

the community. By rendering the tax upon such fines a good deal heavier

than upon the ordinary rent, this hurtful practice might be discouraged,

to the no small advantage of all the different parties concerned, of the

landlord, of the tenant, of the sovereign, and of the whole community.

Some leases prescribe to the tenant a certain mode of cultivation, and a

certain succession of crops, during the whole continuance of the lease.

This condition, which is generally the effect of the landlord's conceit

of his own superior knowledge (a conceit in most cases very

ill-founded), ought always to be considered as an additional rent, as a

rent in service, instead of a rent in money. In order to discourage the

practice, which is generally a foolish one, this species of rent might

be valued rather high, and consequently taxed somewhat higher than

common money-rents.

Some landlords, instead of a rent in money, require a rent in kind, in

corn, cattle, poultry, wine, oil, &c.; others, again, require a rent in

service. Such rents are always more hurtful to the tenant than

beneficial to the landlord. They either take more, or keep more out of

the pocket of the former, than they put into that of the latter. In

every country where they take place, the tenants are poor and beggarly,

pretty much according to the degree in which they take place. By

valuing, in the same manner, such rents rather high, and consequently

taxing them somewhat higher than common money-rents, a practice which is

hurtful to the whole community, might, perhaps, be sufficiently

discouraged.

When the landlord chose to occupy himself a part of his own lands, the

rent might be valued according to an equitable arbitration of the

farmers and landlords in the neighbourhood, and a moderate abatement of

the tax might be granted to him, in the same manner as in the Venetian

territory, provided the rent of the lands which he occupied did not

exceed a certain sum. It is of importance that the landlord should be

encouraged to cultivate a part of his own land. His capital is generally

greater than that of the tenant, and, with less skill, he can frequently

raise a greater produce. The landlord can afford to try experiments, and

in generally disposed to do so. His unsuccessful experiments occasion

only a moderate loss to himself. His successful ones contribute to the

improvement and better cultivation of the whole country. It might be of

importance, however, that the abatement of the tax should encourage him

to cultivate to a certain extent only. If the landlords should, the

greater part of them, be tempted to farm the whole of their own lands,

the country (instead of sober and industrious tenants, who are bound by

their own interest to cultivate as well as their capital and skill will

allow them) would be filled with idle and profligate bailiffs, whose

abusive management would soon degrade the cultivation, and reduce the

annual produce of the land, to the diminution, not only of the revenue

of their masters, but of the most important part of that of the whole

society.

Such a system of administration might, perhaps, free a tax of this kind

from any degree of uncertainty, which could occasion either oppression

or inconveniency to the contributor; and might, at the same time, serve

to introduce into the common management of land such a plan of policy as

might contribute a good deal to the general improvement and good

cultivation of the country.

The expense of levying a land-tax, which varied with every variation of

the rent, would, no doubt, be somewhat greater than that of levying one

which was always rated according to a fixed valuation. Some additional

expense would necessarily be incurred, both by the different

register-offices which it would be proper to establish in the different

districts of the country, and by the different valuations which might

occasionally be made of the lands which the proprietor chose to occupy

himself. The expense of all this, however, might be very moderate, and

much below what is incurred in the levying of many other taxes, which

afford a very inconsiderable revenue in comparison of what might easily

be drawn from a tax of this kind.

The discouragement which a variable land-tax of this kind might give to

the improvement of land, seems to be the most important objection which

can be made to it. The landlord would certainly be less disposed to

improve, when the sovereign, who contributed nothing to the expense, was

to share in the profit of the improvement. Even this objection might,

perhaps, be obviated, by allowing the landlord, before he began his

improvement, to ascertain, in conjunction with the officers of revenue,

the actual value of his lands, according to the equitable arbitration of

a certain number of landlords and farmers in the neighbourhood, equally

chosen by both parties: and by rating him, according to this valuation,

for such a number of years as might be fully sufficient for his complete

indemnification. To draw the attention of the sovereign towards the

improvement of the land, from a regard to the increase of his own

revenue, is one of the principal advantages proposed by this species of

land-tax. The term, therefore, allowed, for the indemnification of the

landlord, ought not to be a great deal longer than what was necessary

for that purpose, lest the remoteness of the interest should discourage

too much this attention. It had better, however, be somewhat too long,

than in any respect too short. No incitement to the attention of the

sovereign can ever counterbalance the smallest discouragement to that of

the landlord. The attention of the sovereign can be, at best, but a very

general and vague consideration of what is likely to contribute to the

better cultivation of the greater part of his dominions. The attention

of the landlord is a particular and minute consideration of what is

likely to be the most advantageous application of every inch of ground

upon his estate. The principal attention of the sovereign ought to be,

to encourage, by every means in his power, the attention both of the

landlord and of the farmer, by allowing both to pursue their own

interest in their own way, and according to their own judgment; by

giving to both the most perfect security that they shall enjoy the full

recompence of their own industry; and by procuring to both the most

extensive market for every part of their produce, in consequence of

establishing the easiest and safest communications, both by land and by

water, through every part of his own dominions, as well as the most

unbounded freedom of exportation to the dominions of all other princes.

If, by such a system of administration, a tax of this kind could be so

managed as to give, not only no discouragement, but, on the contrary,

some encouragement to the improvement of land, it does not appear likely

to occasion any other inconveniency to the landlord, except always the

unavoidable one of being obliged to pay the tax.

In all the variations of the state of the society, in the improvement

and in the declension of agriculture; in all the variations in the value

of silver, and in all those in the standard of the coin, a tax of this

kind would, of its own accord, and without any attention of government,

readily suit itself to the actual situation of things, and would be

equally just and equitable in all those different changes. It would,

therefore, be much more proper to be established as a perpetual and

unalterable regulation, or as what is called a fundamental law of the

commonwealth, than any tax which was always to be levied according to a

certain valuation.

Some states, instead of the simple and obvious expedient of a register

of leases, have had recourse to the laborious and expensive one of an

actual survey and valuation of all the lands in the country. They have

suspected, probably, that the lessor and lessee, in order to defraud the

public revenue, might combine to conceal the real terms of the lease.

Doomsday-book seems to have been the result of a very accurate survey of

this kind.

In the ancient dominions of the king of Prussia, the land-tax is

assessed according to an actual survey and valuation, which is reviewed

and altered from time to time.[54] According to that valuation, the lay

proprietors pay from twenty to twenty-five per cent. of their revenue;

ecclesiastics from forty to forty-five per cent. The survey and

valuation of Silesia was made by order of the present king, it is said,

with great accuracy. According to that valuation, the lands belonging to

the bishop of Breslaw are taxed at twenty-five per cent. of their rent.

The other revenues of the ecclesiastics of both religions at fifty per

cent. The commanderies of the Teutonic order, and of that of Malta, at

forty per cent. Lands held by a noble tenure, at thirty-eight and

one-third per cent. Lands held by a base tenure, at thirty-five and

one-third per cent.

The survey and valuation of Bohemia is said to have been the work of

more than a hundred years. It was not perfected till after the peace of

1748, by the orders of the present empress queen.[55] The survey of the

duchy of Milan, which was begun in the time of Charles VI., was not

perfected till after 1760. It is esteemed one of the most accurate that

has ever been made. The survey of Savoy and Piedmont was executed under

the orders of the late king of Sardinia.[56]

In the dominions of the king of Prussia, the revenue of the church is

taxed much higher than that of lay proprietors. The revenue of the

church is, the greater part of it, a burden upon the rent of land. It

seldom happens that any part of it is applied towards the improvement of

land; or is so employed as to contribute, in any respect, towards

increasing the revenue of the great body of the people. His Prussian

majesty had probably, upon that account, thought it reasonable that it

should contribute a good deal more towards relieving the exigencies of

the state. In some countries, the lands of the church are exempted from

all taxes. In others, they are taxed more lightly than other lands. In

the duchy of Milan, the lands which the church possessed before 1575,

are rated to the tax at a third only of their value.

In Silesia, lands held by a noble tenure are taxed three per cent.

higher than those held by a base tenure. The honours and privileges of

different kinds annexed to the former, his Prussian majesty had probably

imagined, would sufficiently compensate to the proprietor a small

aggravation of the tax; while, at the same time, the humiliating

inferiority of the latter would be in some measure alleviated, by being

taxed somewhat more lightly. In other countries, the system of taxation,

instead of alleviating, aggravates this inequality. In the dominions of

the king of Sardinia, and in those provinces of France which are subject

to what is called the real or predial taille, the tax falls altogether

upon the lands held by a base tenure. Those held by a noble one are

exempted.

A land tax assessed according to a general survey and valuation, how

equal soever it may be at first, must, in the course of a very moderate

period of time, become unequal. To prevent its becoming so would require

the continual and painful attention of government to all the variations

in the state and produce of every different farm in the country. The

governments of Prussia, of Bohemia, of Sardinia, and of the duchy of

Milan, actually exert an attention of this kind; an attention so

unsuitable to the nature of government, that it is not likely to be of

long continuance, and which, if it is continued, will probably, in the

long-run, occasion much more trouble and vexation then it can possibly

bring relief to the contributors.

In 1666, the generality of Montauban was assessed to the real or predial

taille, according, it is said, to a very exact survey and valuation.[57]

By 1727, this assessment had become altogether unequal. In order to

remedy this inconveniency, government has found no better expedient,

than to impose upon the whole generality an additional tax of a hundred

and twenty thousand livres. This additional tax is rated upon all the

different districts subject to the taille according to the old

assessment. But it is levied only upon those which, in the actual state

of things, are by that assessment under-taxed; and it is applied to the

relief of those which, by the same assessment, are over-taxed. Two

districts, for example, one of which ought, in the actual state of

things, to be taxed at nine hundred, the other at eleven hundred livres,

are, by the old assessment, both taxed at a thousand livres. Both these

districts are, by the additional tax, rated at eleven hundred livres

each. But this additional tax is levied only upon the district

under-charged, and it is applied altogether to the relief of that

overcharged, which consequently pays only nine hundred livres. The

government neither gains nor loses by the additional tax, which is

applied altogether to remedy the inequalities arising from the old

assessment. The application is pretty much regulated according to the

discretion of the intendant of the generality, and must, therefore, be

in a great measure arbitrary.

_Taxes which are proportioned, not to the Rent, but to the Produce of

Land._

Taxes upon the produce of land are, in reality, taxes upon the rent; and

though they may be originally advanced by the farmer, are finally paid

by the landlord. When a certain portion of the produce is to be paid

away for a tax, the farmer computes as well as he can, what the value of

this portion is, one year with another, likely to amount to, and he

makes a proportionable abatement in the rent which he agrees to pay to

the landlord. There is no farmer who does not compute before hand what

the church tythe, which is a land tax of this kind, is, one year with

another, likely to amount to.

The tythe, and every other land tax of this kind, under the appearance

of perfect equality, are very unequal taxes; a certain portion of the

produce being in different situations, equivalent to a very different

portion of the rent. In some very rich lands, the produce is so great,

that the one half of it is fully sufficient to replace to the farmer his

capital employed in cultivation, together with the ordinary profits of

farming stock in the neighbourhood. The other half, or, what comes to

the same thing, the value of the other half, he could afford to pay as

rent to the landlord, if there was no tythe. But if a tenth of the

produce is taken from him in the way of tythe, he must require an

abatement of the fifth part of his rent, otherwise he cannot get back

his capital with the ordinary profit. In this case, the rent of the

landlord, instead of amounting to a half, or five-tenths of the whole

produce, will amount only to four-tenths of it. In poorer lands, on the

contrary, the produce is sometimes so small, and the expense of

cultivation so great, that it requires four-fifths of the whole produce,

to replace to the farmer his capital with the ordinary profit. In this

case, though there was no tythe, the rent of the landlord could amount

to no more than one-fifth or two-tenths of the whole produce. But if the

farmer pays one-tenth of the produce in the way of tythe, he must

require an equal abatement of the rent of the landlord, which will thus

be reduced to one-tenth only of the whole produce. Upon the rent of rich

lands the tythe may sometimes be a tax of no more than one-fifth part,

or four shillings in the pound; whereas upon that of poorer lands, it

may sometimes be a tax of one half, or of ten shillings in the pound.

The tythe, as it is frequently a very unequal tax upon the rent, so it

is always a great discouragement, both to the improvements of the

landlord, and to the cultivation of the farmer. The one cannot venture

to make the most important, which are generally the most expensive

improvements; nor the other to raise the most valuable, which are

generally, too, the most expensive crops; when the church, which lays

out no part of the expense, is to share so very largely in the profit.

The cultivation of madder was, for a long time, confined by the tythe to

the United Provinces, which, being presbyterian countries, and upon that

account exempted from this destructive tax, enjoyed a sort of monopoly

of that useful dyeing drug against the rest of Europe. The late attempts

to introduce the culture of this plant into England, have been made only

in consequence of the statute, which enacted that five shillings an acre

should be received in lieu of all manner of tythe upon madder.

As through the greater part of Europe, the church, so in many different

countries of Asia, the state, is principally supported by a land tax,

proportioned not to the rent, but to the produce of the land. In China,

the principal revenue of the sovereign consists in a tenth part of the

produce of all the lands of the empire. This tenth part, however, is

estimated so very moderately, that, in many provinces, it is said not to

exceed a thirtieth part of the ordinary produce. The land tax or land

rent which used to be paid to the Mahometan government of Bengal, before

that country fell into the hands of the English East India company, is

said to have amounted to about a fifth part of the produce. The land tax

of ancient Egypt is said likewise to have amounted to a fifth part.

In Asia, this sort of land tax is said to interest the sovereign in the

improvement and cultivation of land. The sovereigns of China, those of

Bengal while under the Mahometan government, and those of ancient Egypt,

are said, accordingly, to have been extremely attentive to the making

and maintaining of good roads and navigable canals, in order to

increase, as much as possible, both the quantity and value of every part

of the produce of the land, by procuring to every part of it the most

extensive market which their own dominions could afford. The tythe of

the church is divided into such small portions that no one of its

proprietors can have any interest of this kind. The parson of a parish

could never find his account in making a road or canal to a distant part

of the country, in order to extend the market for the produce of his own

particular parish. Such taxes, when destined for the maintenance of the

state, have some advantages, which may serve in some measure to balance

their inconveniency. When destined for the maintenance of the church,

they are attended with nothing but inconveniency.

Taxes upon the produce of land may be levied, either in kind, or,

according to a certain valuation in money.

The person of a parish, or a gentleman of small fortune who lives upon

his estate, may sometimes, perhaps find some advantage in receiving, the

one his tythe, and the other his rent, in kind. The quantity to be

collected, and the district within which it is to be collected, are so

small, that they both can oversee, with their own eyes, the collection

and disposal of every part of what is due to them. A gentleman of great

fortune, who lived in the capital, would be in danger of suffering much

by the neglect, and more by the fraud, of his factors and agents, if the

rents of an estate in a distant province were to be paid to him in this

manner. The loss of the sovereign, from the abuse and depredation of his

tax-gatherers, would necessarily be much greater. The servants of the

most careless private person are, perhaps, more under the eye of their

master than those of the most careful prince; and a public revenue,

which was paid in kind, would suffer so much from the mismanagement of

the collectors, that a very small part of what was levied upon the

people would ever arrive at the treasury of the prince. Some part of the

public revenue of China, however, is said to be paid in this manner. The

mandarins and other tax-gatherers will, no doubt, find their advantage

in continuing the practice of a payment, which is so much more liable to

abuse than any payment in money.

A tax upon the produce of land, which is levied in money, may be levied,

either according to a valuation, which varies with all the variations of

the market price; or according to a fixed valuation, a bushel of wheat,

for example, being always valued at one and the same money price,

whatever may be the state of the market. The produce of a tax levied in

the former way will vary only according to the variations in the real

produce of the land, according to the improvement or neglect of

cultivation. The produce of a tax levied in the latter way will vary,

not only according to the variations in the produce of the land, but

according both to those in the value of the precious metals, and those

in the quantity of those metals, which is at different times contained

in coin of the same denomination. The produce of the former will always

bear the same proportion to the value of the real produce of the land.

The produce of the latter may, at different times, bear very different

proportions to that value.