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CHAPTER XIV

THE FINANCIAL SYSTEM OF THE LATER PROPRIETARY PROVINCES

In no department of public activity are tendencies toward self-government clearer than in this. Conflicts between legislatures and executives arose more from fiscal questions than from those of any other character. The attitude of more or less passive resistance which the colonists maintained toward the plans of the home government and its officials relating to defence originated largely in a consciousness of fiscal weakness. Not only were the resources of the colonists inadequate for purposes of large and continuous expenditure, but loose methods of administration prevented their governments from fully utilizing the resources which actually existed.

In the provinces the territorial revenue was a private resource of the proprietor, and as such has been described in the chapter which treats of the land system. The revenue which was derived from fines and forfeitures appeared in similar forms in all the colonies, and was an incident rather than an essential feature of their fiscal systems. Taxes, duties, and fees were the characteristic sources of income in the provinces, as well as in the corporate colonies. A consideration of provincial, as distinguished from local, revenue in the seventeenth century may be limited to these; and they will be treated more from the administrative than from the economic standpoint.

Under the head of direct taxes in the provinces appear the poll or personal tax, the property tax, and, in a few instances, a land tax. The poll tax, by itself or combined with a property tax, was levied in all the provinces which are now being considered, with the exception of New Netherland. The nearest approach to it in that province was the

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levy, after 1655, upon the Jews who were resident in New Amsterdam of a monthly payment per capita in lieu of service in the burgher guard and in the watch.¹ In the proprietary provinces generally the poll tax, either alone or in conjunction with the property tax, was the earliest form of levy. It was so in Maryland, where by an act of 1642 a subsidy of twenty pounds of tobacco per poll was granted to the proprietor. Often thereafter a similar form of tax was resorted to in that province.² In South Carolina the same form of tax was employed in 1690. Occasionally in New Jersey an annual poll tax was levied to pay the salary of the governor.³ In Pennsylvania the poll tax appears, though from the first in combination with a land or property tax.⁴ In most cases, except in the province of Maryland, the poll tax and property tax were combined. In Maryland even, because the poll tax was assessed upon servants and slaves but paid by their masters, it approximated to a property tax.

Wherever the poll tax was resorted to, it necessitated a definition of tithables. Under the act of 1642 in Maryland they included all free persons, apprentices, servants, and slaves who were twelve years of age or over. The act of 1654 excepted white women servants from the list. By the act of 1674 priests and ministers were excepted from the list of taxable freemen, while sixteen was designated as the age limit in the case of freemen.⁵ The act of 1690 in South Carolina defined taxables as freemen and white servants who were sixteen years of age. In the New Jersey acts males who were fourteen years old and upward were made liable; while in Pennsylvania, in 1683, males between sixteen and sixty were designated. The tendency to make the lower age limit for freemen correspond to that fixed for military service is noticeable.

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In Maryland, until 1670, the lists of tithables were prepared by the sheriffs. But in that year it was found that the lists were imperfect and an order was issued intrusting this duty to the constables of the hundreds. It, however, did not remain long in their hands, for in 1675 the duty was again being performed by sheriffs. In 1677, owing to the remissness of the sheriffs, as shown in their omission of names, the justices of the peace were ordered to review and correct¹ the lists. In South Carolina, in 1690, the constables were utilized, while again, in 1703, the lists of the militia companies were used ² as the basis of levy. In New Jersey and Pennsylvania³ the town constables kept the lists of taxables.

But in the provinces generally the levy on polls early disappeared, or played its chief part as a feature of the property tax. The property tax was the leading form of direct levy in all the proprietary provinces. In most cases it took the form of a percentage of the value of property,—as a penny on the pound,—while in others the common forms of property were taxed at fixed rates, as land at a penny an acre and cattle at eight pence per head.⁴ In cases where the tax was laid in the form of a percentage, it became necessary to appraise the value of the property. After a comparison had been made between the total valuation and the sum which it was necessary to raise, the rate of levy was found. Provisions,⁵ more or less detailed, for the assessment of the property tax in either case became necessary. The statutes in all the provinces except Maryland designated how this should be done. In that province control over the details of assessment was left to the governor and council.

In Maryland, in 1654, when the province was being administered by commissioners of parliament, a law was passed

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providing that for the coming year the public charges should be met, not only by a levy on taxable persons, but by a tax on visible estates as well. Land and cattle, the principal forms of taxable property in all the colonies, were then subjected to a tax. In 1657 a return was temporarily made to the poll tax. But after 1660 the levy came regularly to be imposed each year¹ on persons and estates. The county was the unit of levy. The annual charges which were to be met by the tax were estimated, and a levy was ordered which should yield the lump sum that was needed. When the levy of a property tax was resorted to, an assessment became necessary. In Maryland the levy was assessed by commissioners from the different counties, who were summoned by the sheriff to meet the governor and council for the purpose. In 1650² and 1651 acts were passed requiring the election of commissioners for this purpose by the counties. This feature of the system, however, was soon abandoned. The taxes were collected by the sheriffs, and the treasurers—one for each shore—were the custodians of the revenue. These officers were appointees of the governor.³

In South Carolina the property tax first appeared in 1682. In 1685, on the occasion of the destruction by the Spanish of Lord Cardross’s colony at Port Royal, an act was passed for the levy of £500 on the inhabitants of the province according to their estates and profits.⁴ The taxables in this instance were all the inhabitants—servants excepted—who were in the province when the act was passed, or who should come in before the assessment was made. Provision was made in the act for the assessment of the tax by a board of thirteen freeholders appointed by the grand council and sitting at Charlestown. On the completion of their work a return of the same should be made to the grand council, which should order the two receivers to collect. Provision was made for a special commission of appeal to hear complaints and remedy inequalities in assessment. The receivers

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were named in the act, and were allowed as their reward ten per cent of all they should collect. They were required to give security and to keep and submit accounts of their transactions. As was usually the case in the colonies, the tax was paid in commodities at specified rates, and authority was given to levy by distress on failure of payment. This is one of the most carefully drawn statutes which appears on the subject of taxation among the early laws of any colony.

The system which the act of 1685 prescribed in South Carolina was followed,¹ with slight variations, throughout the proprietary period. The poll tax of 1690 was collected by the constables in each division of Berkeley county, and was paid by them to the designated receivers. The act of 1702, under which a general tax on estates was levied, provided for a large board of special assessors. The tax was to be collected under the immediate authority of the public receiver, an officer already in existence, who was designated in the act. The law of 1703 provided for “inquirers,” who should make inventories of estates. They reported to several local boards of assessment, which were required in turn to report to a general board which sat at Charlestown. This acted as a board of equalization, and submitted the results of its work to the clerk of the commons house and to the public receiver. Notice of the amount of each individual’s assessment was given through the captains of the militia companies. The tax was to be paid at Charlestown, and the assistance of the constable was required only when it was necessary to collect arrears through distress. Provision was also made in this act for special commissioners of appeal. It thus appears that the provisions of the law in South Carolina for the assessment of taxes were unusually specific.

Wherever the Duke’s Laws were in force in New York the New England poll tax and country rate were regularly collected. The elected officers of the localities were made use of for the purpose. Annually in June the high sheriff sent forth his warrants to the constables to call together the overseers of the towns. Their duty was to prepare the lists of taxables, who in this case were the males from sixteen years

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upward, identical with those who were liable to military service. The varieties of real and personal estate, which the overseers should also list, were designated with care. The assessment lists, when completed, were delivered to the constables and by them to the high sheriff. He examined and equalized them, and ultimately delivered them to the governor. But as soon as the sheriff had completed the equalization, orders might be issued to the constables for the collection of the tax. The general list was arranged, as in early years in New England, in the form of quotas by towns. With the sheriff and the courts rested the authority to compel both rate payers and constables to perform their duty. As yet the office of treasurer had not been created, and the revenue was to be paid over to the governor and council.¹ The country rate, as we have seen, was approximately a tax of a penny in the pound on real and personal estate. Its adoption in New York was later perpetuated by legislative grants. From New York as a centre the same form of tax was introduced into other provinces farther south. In 1683 the first grant of a penny in the pound of the value of all real and personal estate in New York was made. By this time counties were in existence, and for the assessment of this tax a board of commissioners for each county was designated in the act.² Local assessors chosen by the towns were required to report the assessment lists of their towns to the county boards. These boards, after examining the lists, should designate two or more collectors in each county and order them to collect the tax and pay it over to the receiver-general of the province or his deputies. Threepence in the pound was paid for collecting, and twopence in the pound for the services of the receiver-general. Punishment for default, whether of officials or of taxables, was inflicted at the instance of the county assessors.

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In New Jersey resort was had from the outset to the country rate, and it was levied by quotas on the towns.¹ A country treasurer was designated in the earliest act for a tax levy, and the custom was apparently continued after that time. Collectors were also sometimes named in the acts. This was consistent with the Concessions and Agreement of 1665, which gave to the assembly the right to regulate very fully the collection and expenditure of revenue. The town apparently assessed its quota, as was the custom in New England.

The twenty-four proprietors abandoned the town quotas, and levied by counties a general rate “on lands and stocks.”² County boards of assessors were named in the act, as was also a province treasurer. The rate was collected by the constables of the towns, and both they and the treasurer were paid by a percentage out of the levy. In 1688 the New York practice was imitated, and a tax of a penny in the pound was imposed on estates. In West Jersey, beginning with 1684, in addition to a land tax, provision was made in the acts for levies on the personal property of merchants, artisans, tavernkeepers, and others who possessed little or no land. The inhabitants of the tenths—which were to become counties—were required to choose in each case a board of assessors and two collectors. The latter were to pay the revenue which they collected to the treasurers of the province. For all purposes of levy and collection, Salem tenth was treated separately until 1701. Then the system of assessment and collection by counties was fully instituted, and Salem county was incorporated with the rest of the province.

In Pennsylvania, during the administration of Governor Fletcher and thereafter, a tax of a penny in the pound on real and personal estates was levied throughout the province. This was clearly an imitation of New York usage, and it continued to be the form under which the property tax was levied in Pennsylvania during the remainder of the colonial period. The proprietor and his deputy were exempt, and by the act of 1693 those also whose real and

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personal estate was less than £30. By later acts—those of 1696 and 1699—adult males who were worth less than £72 were required to pay only a poll tax of six shillings.¹

The method of assessing the tax differed in Pennsylvania from that employed in New York. No special board of commissioners was named in the act, neither were the towns ordered to elect persons to cooperate in the assessment. The county was the unit of levy, and its officials were almost exclusively utilized for the purpose. The members of the assembly from the counties were authorized to appoint three justices of the peace or other freeholders of their county to serve with them as a board of assessors. This board ordered the constables to bring in lists of names and valuations. From these the assessments were made. Collectors were appointed by the county boards of assessors, and the assessors acted as boards of equalization. Provision was made for the payment of the funds collected to the receiver or treasurer. By the first act—that passed during Fletcher’s administration—the right to name this officer was reserved to the governor, but he was designated by name in the other laws. The first two of the Pennsylvania acts which are here referred to were accompanied by laws for the levy of a penny in the pound to meet county charges. The method of assessing and collecting these levies was the same as that prescribed for the province tax, though county officers performed all the duties.

The forms of levy to which reference has been made occupied a more prominent place in the revenue system of the English colonies than they did in that of New Netherland. In the Dutch parts of that province the chief form of the direct tax was the tithe, or the tax on land. It was an annual tender to the government of one-tenth of the produce of land. Provision was made as early as 1638 that its payment should begin on any plantation ten years after its settlement. The requirement extended to the English, as well as to the Dutch, planters, and provision for it was introduced into the patents of some of the Dutch towns. But it presently appeared that, because of sparse settlements and unimproved

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lands, the tithe, in Manhattan and the country outside, was difficult to collect. It fell into arrears. So inadequate was the revenue that, when in 1654 it again became necessary to improve the defences, a small loan had to be raised. Stuyvesant’s property was mortgaged for its payment.¹

In order to pay this loan the land tax was further utilized and extended. An annual tax of twenty stivers was imposed on every morgen of land—about two acres—which was held by patent. A tax of the same amount was levied on every head of horned cattle, goats and sheep excepted, which was above three years old, and twelve stivers on those which were two years old. During the following years the rate on land was lowered to ten stivers, and the twentieth penny, or five per cent per year, was imposed on the rentals of houses. In 1658, in order to lessen the number of vacant lots in New Amsterdam, a special annual tax of the fifteenth penny was laid on the value of unimproved land within the city. The revenue was to be applied to the building and repair of the defences of the city.² At New Amstel a tax was levied on sales of land and also on transfers which resulted from executions.³

When resort was had to the land tax, the tenth was not abandoned. In 1658, and probably in other years as well, two commissioners were appointed to collect the tenth among the towns which were subject to Dutch control on Long Island. Those who were liable to the tax were forbidden to remove from the fields crops of grain, maize, or tobacco before they had been visited by the commissioners and the tenth had been taken out. Tenths were sometimes farmed out, the farmers receiving the same powers as the commissioners. The revenue obtained from this source was distributed among

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the towns, and was used by them to meet the deficits arising from the inadequacy of other taxes.¹

Among the English colonies in the seventeenth century, the only instances of resort to a land tax, as distinct from the property tax, appeared in the Jerseys. In 1675 and 1676 a land tax was levied in East Jersey, though the rate is not specified in the laws. The tax was imposed on land which had been patented, whether by residents or non-residents, and on land for which patents had been solicited in accordance with the rules prescribed in the Concessions. Between 1684 and 1688 the proprietors also repeatedly levied on the land of their respective proprieties to meet the expenses of the board.² In West Jersey, beginning in 1684, land was assessed at specified rates, a distinction being made between divided estates and those which were parts³ of undivided shares. In 1693 this tax was merged with the general property tax.

The forms of indirect taxation to which resort was had in the provinces, as well as in the corporate colonies, were export and import duties and a tonnage duty. In New Netherland, however, the excise on liquors played an important part, and this feature of the Dutch revenue system was inherited by the English of New York. In that province the excise continued to be levied throughout the colonial period. In Pennsylvania it was first resorted to in 1700, and was continued thereafter. In East Jersey an excise was laid in 1692, but the following year it was discontinued.⁴ In no other English province during the early colonial period did the excise play any part as a fiscal measure.

As has previously been stated, the excise was first levied in New Netherland, in June, 1644. It was imposed on beer, wine, brandy, and beaver, the excise on beer being divided between the brewer and the tapster. Recourse to it was occasioned by the necessities of an Indian war. The need of

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revenue with which to clothe and feed a body of soldiers who had arrived from Curaçoa for the relief of the province furnished the reason for its continuance by an order of August of the same year. It then¹ became a permanent feature of the system of taxation, and was extended to all parts of the province. Orders were issued from time to time to regulate the manufacture and sale of beer so as best to prevent smuggling. In 1656 the regulations in force for this purpose in the fatherland were ordered to be executed in the province. When, in 1653, the revenue from the excise in New Amsterdam was resigned to the city to be spent for local purposes, the rates levied on wine, brandy, and spirits throughout the province were increased.² An extensive system of tavern licenses and regulations resulted from the efforts to enforce the excise. Its collection was farmed out annually in each of the principal sections of the province to the highest bidder, and local collectors were appointed, with the approval of the director and council, to assist the farmer in his work.³

In 1656, in order to prevent the unlicensed killing of domestic animals throughout the country districts, an order was issued requiring that in those regions no cattle should thenceforth be slaughtered without permit. For the issue of such permits fees were collected⁴ which were the equivalent of an excise. The revenue from this tax was reserved for expenditure in the localities where it was raised. It was collected at the Esopus and on Long Island.

Unlike the English colonies, New Netherland had its staple port. Provision was made in the Freedoms and Exemptions of 1629 that all peltries should be brought to Manhattan for shipment. Until 1645 both the export and the import trade of the province was carried on exclusively in the vessels of the company and in those of the privileged patroons. Entrances and clearances were all at Manhattan. When, in the last-mentioned year, trade was thrown open to private merchants, strict orders were issued that commodities,

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both inward and outward, should pass through New Amsterdam. This rule was applied to coastwise trade, as well as to trade with Europe. This regulation of the course of trade was soon followed by the levy of export and import duties. In 1629 fur traders who trafficked in regions where the company had no factories were required to pay an export duty on their goods. Not until 1647 was an ordinance issued on this subject within the province, and then specific rates were prescribed for beaver, otter, and elk hides.¹ The duty on peltry was afterward changed by the company into an eight per cent ad valorem rate. This occasioned a diminution of revenue, and for this reason, in 1652, Stuyvesant and his council added a duty of four stivers on each skin. As early as 1638 a duty was levied on the export of tobacco; this, though of slight consequence, was not abolished until 1652. Peltry was the only article of export in Dutch times from which a revenue of importance was derived.

Prior to 1642 import duties were not collected in New Netherland. But beginning on that date, under instructions from the company, a duty of ten per cent was levied on all imported merchandise which had paid nothing in Holland, Brazil, Guinea, or the Dutch West Indies. In 1654, because of the low state of the treasury, specific duties were imposed on a list of commodities which were imported especially for the Indian trade, together with liquors and salt. The revenue on imports from Europe suffered from the fact that merchants were accustomed to land commodities in Virginia or in the New England colonies and introduce them thence into New Netherland. To meet this difficulty, in 1652, a duty of sixteen per cent was imposed on all merchandise which was imported from the English colonies. In 1658 a general ten per cent duty was levied on imports, with a free list consisting of provisions, malt, tobacco, and sugar.² The accumulation of duties³ in the Netherlands and in New Netherland was a burden to commerce and a cause of the high prices of European commodities which prevailed in the province. For this reason it occasioned loud complaint

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during the agitation which filled the early years of Stuyvesant’s administration. But there is no proof that the duties which the Dutch were forced to pay were higher than those to which consumers in the English colonies were subjected after the financial systems of the latter had been fully developed.

As soon as New Netherland was conquered by the English the customs duties which at the time were prescribed in the English book of rates were put into force. In February, 1665, a special tariff was proclaimed, to be in force until the following September. It provided for a ten per cent import duty on liquors and goods for the Indian trade, and eight per cent on other merchandise which was not of the growth and manufacture of England. English products were subject only to a five per cent duty. An export duty of ten and a half per cent was levied on peltries, and one of 2d. per pound on tobacco. These duties were required to be paid partly in beaver and partly in wampum.¹

Among the instructions which were given to Andros in 1674² was a provision for new rates of customs duties. The low ad valorem rate of two per cent should be levied on the importation of all merchandise which was shipped in England, or in the English colonies. Ten per cent was required on foreign goods, even though they had come by the way of England and had paid duties there. A special duty of three per cent was levied on all goods which were sent up the Hudson, except axes, ploughshares, shovels, and some other articles which were needed in the working and improvement of farms. Specific rates of duty were levied on the importation of wine, brandy, and rum, and these were doubled when the liquors were sent up the Hudson.

An export duty of 1s. 7d. per skin on beaver was also required, and proportionately on other peltry. Two shillings per hogshead were levied on tobacco, provided bond was given, as required by the act of 25 Charles II, to land it in England. If bond were not given, the owner must pay 1d. per pound. These were the only export duties.

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Regulations and rates on the Delaware were the same as those on the Hudson. There is no evidence that during the proprietary period a tonnage duty was collected in New York.

By an act of the first legislature¹ of New York new rates of duty were imposed, and those largely specific. The rates were increased, and the distinction between the imposition on foreign goods and on goods brought direct from England and the English colonies was dropped. These rates continued in force until after New York became a royal province. There is, in fact, no evidence that they were legally changed until 1692, when the first revenue act of Fletcher’s administration was passed.

Indirect taxes figured much less prominently among the English colonies in general in the seventeenth century than they did among the Dutch, or in New York under English rule. In Maryland no indirect tax of importance was levied until 1671. Then the duty of 2s. per hogshead, to which reference has elsewhere been made, was levied on tobacco exported from the province. This grant was made in return for an agreement on the part of the proprietor that he should receive tobacco in payment of his territorial revenue² at the rate of 2d. per pound. Of the revenue from the duty one half went for the support of the government in Maryland and the other half went directly to the proprietor. The law was reënacted in 1674 and continued through the lives of Charles and Cecilius Calvert. No import duties whatever and no additional export duties were levied until after the establishment of royal government.

In South Carolina the first export duty was levied in 1691,³ to meet the cost of defence. The duty was imposed wholly on peltry, and the rates were specific. The receiver was entitled to one-tenth of the duty which he collected and paid into the treasury. In 1700 an import duty was levied on liquors and merchandise. The act imposing this duty has been lost, but we know from another which was passed

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later in the same year that its administrative regulations had been inadequate to prevent smuggling in the export trade, and therefore had to be strengthened. In 1703 a much more elaborate act was passed, which provided for export and import duties at specific rates on a considerable list of commodities. Liquors and furs, however, occupied the most prominent places. The system was continued by later enactments.¹

No record remains of the levy of customs duties in either East or West Jersey prior to 1702. A port was established by the East Jersey proprietors at Perth Amboy, but no attempt was made to collect duties there.² This indeed furnished one of the arguments which were urged by the authorities of New York against permitting vessels to load or unload there at all. They declared that, if this policy were tolerated, inasmuch as no duties were collected in New Jersey, the trade of New York would be drawn away and lost. The royal customs would thus suffer serious diminution. In 1682 an act³ was passed by the assembly of Pennsylvania laying specific rates of duties on imported liquors and an ad valorem rate on all other merchandise, molasses excepted. An export duty was also levied on hides and peltry. This law remained in force until 1690, when it was repealed. No other act for the levy of a customs duty was passed until 1705.

Maryland and South Carolina⁴ were the only provinces which, prior to 1690, resorted to a tonnage duty. This was regularly paid in powder, or in powder and shot, and furnished a most important source of their supply for the province. The duty was first instituted in Maryland by a law of 1650, followed by an act of 1661. In South Carolina the first law on the subject was passed in 1686. A second act on the subject was not passed in Maryland until 1692, but in South Carolina no less than five acts requiring the payment of this duty were passed between 1690 and 1703. These made provision

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for a controller, and afterward for a powder receiver, who was designated in the act, for the surveying of vessels to ascertain their tonnage, the keeping of accounts and entries and clearances. In the law of 1698 the same person was designated as master gunner and powder receiver. Under the stress of the colonial wars nearly all the colonies resorted to this form of duty, and made use of the regulations necessary for its collection as an aid in the administration of their customs service in general.

In all the colonies, before the development of the salary system, officials derived their support to a large extent from fees. Especially in the provinces was it true that payment was made in this form for all varieties of official service. In the absence of any provision to the contrary, the limiting of the amount of fees was properly regarded as an incident of the power of the executive to constitute offices and appoint officers. But in most of the proprietary provinces the legislature early undertook to some extent to regulate the discretion of the executive in this matter. So directly did the question of fees affect the pockets of the colonists, that action of this kind was scarcely avoidable. In New Netherland the director and council, as a matter of course, determined the rates of notarial and judicial fees, both for localities and for the province at large. When they were left undefined and became so exorbitant that popular complaint was aroused, tables of fees were prescribed by ordinance and enforced under its authority.¹ In the Duke’s Laws fees connected with judicial procedure were prescribed, as those of the sheriff, constables, justices of the peace, clerks of the courts, at least for a part of their services. Justices of the peace were paid a small salary in addition. When, in 1683, the first legislature of the province met,² it by a general enactment confirmed the fees of sheriffs, clerks of courts, and other officers, and jurymen, at the rates which had customarily been taken. Beyond this, in New York, legislative interference with the right of the executive to limit fees did not proceed until after 1690.

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In Maryland the legislature early undertook the task of limiting fees. In 1638 a comprehensive bill on the subject was introduced, and ultimately, though not by direct enactment, it became law.¹ In 1642, however, it ceased to be operative, and the rates of fees for the secretary, surveyor-general, sheriff, and clerks of court were determined by the governor and council and published in a proclamation. Not until 1650 did the assembly again attempt to legislate on the subject. It then passed acts limiting the fees of the secretary and sheriffs, and, under the name of a fee, the salary of the muster-master general. The following year the fees of the surveyor-general were also fixed² by law, and the provisions of this act were in force as late as 1666. About 1669 there was much complaint of the high rates of fees charged by attorneys, and in 1675 an act³ limiting them was passed. Incidentally also the fact was revealed that the fees of the governor, when acting as chancellor, had not been limited; and the same was undoubtedly true of other officers and many other functions. But no controversy over the subject arose, and no further action was taken until after 1690. Taking the period in Maryland as a whole, it may be said that fees were regulated partly by statute and partly by ordinance, but more by the latter than by the former.

The Carolina Concessions of 1665 provided, among other things, that fees should be determined by the legislature. As early as 1671 we find the grand council preparing a table of fees to be submitted to the parliament.⁴ In 1683 a comprehensive act on the subject was passed, but it has been lost. In 1685 acts were passed limiting the fees of the governor, the surveyor-general, the clerk of the peace, the clerk of the crown, the coroner, and the clerk of parliament. The part of the governor’s activity which came within the scope of the statute was that which concerned the granting of licenses, probate of wills, and admiralty business. Other acts were passed at frequent intervals until 1694, when a

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general act was passed specifying at great length the fees of all important offices in the province. Another general act was passed in 1698; in 1700 an act especially relating to fees in the admiralty court was passed; in 1706 one was passed specifying again the fees of the coroner.¹ It thus appears that in respect to fees in South Carolina the principle of action laid down in the Concessions and Agreement was carefully followed. From the beginning fees were regulated by statute. Only once during the proprietary period do we hear a complaint concerning fees. During Ludwell’s administration, about 1692, in a list of grievances which was laid before the governor appears the charge that public officers were receiving higher fees than were allowed by act of parliament in England for the same services.²

Among the laws of New Jersey no extended reference to fees appears until an act which was passed in East Jersey in 1686. That established full lists of fees for the secretary, surveyor-general, sheriffs, and clerks of the county courts. By an act of 1681, in West Jersey, the governor and commissioners were given authority to limit the fees of all officials, and the exacting of any at higher rates than those which were thus prescribed was forbidden. Not until 1695 was a list of fees in that province actually prescribed by statute.³ The law of Pennsylvania required from the beginning that fees and salaries should be moderate, that they should be limited by the governor and assembly, and that lists showing their amount should be posted in every court. Those who were convicted of taking fees in excess of the legal rates should be fined and dismissed from office. An elaborate table of fees, covering the chief duties of the governor, secretary, treasurer, and other leading officials of the province, was enacted into law. By this and later special acts the precedent was early established in Penn’s province that fees were a subject for statutory regulation.⁴

It thus appears that in all the provinces, except Maryland and New York, the rates of fees were early regulated by

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statute; and it is possible that on no subject, even among those connected with finance, was legislation considered more necessary by the people than on this.

Respecting the general objects of expenditure in the proprietary provinces, it is possible to speak with some definiteness. They were defence, the salaries of officials, the salaries of agents, the erection and repair of jails and of the few other public buildings which were needed, the board and lodging of judges and jurors during the sessions of courts, and payment for a variety of miscellaneous services. In South Carolina they included the salaries of ministers of the Established Church and of schoolmasters. In New Netherland also clergymen of the Dutch Church, schoolmasters, and comforters of the sick received public support. The wages of members of the assembly were usually paid by their constituents, though at rates fixed by law. The sums which were devoted to these objects it is impossible, save in a few cases, to specify. The order of relative importance in the various objects of expenditure varied, we may suppose, with every province. Except in Pennsylvania, and possibly in the Jerseys, defence claimed by far the largest part of the public revenue. The appropriation acts, so far as they have been preserved, refer chiefly to provision for expeditions against the Indians or other enemies of the colonists or colonial government, the building and repair of forts, the maintenance of watches, the procuring of a supply of arms and ammunition, the payment of the wages of officers and soldiers. This is as true of New Netherland and New York as it is of the southern provinces. In Maryland, as we have seen, a part of the expenditure took the form of pensions.

In the provinces, as in the corporate colonies, the salary system was a gradual development. Throughout the seventeenth century the lower officers received their support from fees, and that of the higher officers came partly in that form. The governor in all cases received a salary. So did some of the other officers of higher rank, but it is not easy to tell just how far the salary system extended. In New Netherland the director, the members of the council, the schout fiscal, the receiver-general, military commanders, commissaries,

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and skippers are early referred to as recipients of salaries from the company.¹ By 1644 two clergymen and a schoolmaster had been added, and the total annual expenses for the civil list were 20,040 guilders. Respecting the list in proprietary New York, we have almost no information. The probability, however, is that in the case of both provincial and local officers it did not greatly differ from that of the Dutch period. In Dongan’s time the governor received a salary of £600. By an act of 1684, which was never approved by the proprietor, provision was made for the payment² of salaries out of the revenue of the counties to the justices of sessions and judges of oyer and terminer within the counties.

In Maryland the governor received a salary, or grants of land, from the outset, though a system of salaries was not established till the period of royal government. Whether the council received support in that form before the levy of the export duty on tobacco, in 1671, it is impossible to state.³ Previous to 1689 no legislative provision was made for the salary of the judges of the provincial court. No attempt was made to designate what part of the country levy should go as a reward to the justices. The county courts were empowered to levy sums, sometimes limited, but often not specified, to meet general county expenses. But the amount which they reserved for themselves is unknown. In South Carolina we hear almost nothing of salaries until about 1700, when a salary was provided by law for the receiver-general. In 1698 the first chief justice received a salary of £60 per annum. The governor, during the later proprietary period, received £200 per annum. In North Carolina the chief justice received the same salary as did the incumbent of that office in the southern part of the province, and in both cases they were paid by the proprietors.⁴ By a law of New Jersey, in 1676, provision was made for the payment of a daily wage to the governor, councillors, and deputies during the sessions of the assembly. According to this enactment, it was to be paid by the province;

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but a law of 1682 devolved the support of the deputies on the towns. With some regularity a salary was annually voted to the governor. In 1697 and 1701 Governor Andrew Hamilton received the same recognition in West Jersey.¹ The governor’s salary is the only instance of reward in that form distinct reference to which in proprietary New Jersey has come down to us. Receivers and collectors were compensated by percentages of what they held or collected. The fee system was predominant in the provinces, and salaries played but a small part in the fiscal system.

The detailed appropriation acts of Maryland furnish the best illustrations of the nature of colonial expenditures in general. Among the objects for which provision was made in June, 1674,² were expenses of a session of the legislature, charges of grand juries, cost of keeping prisoners, cost of removing and caring for the public records, payment for building stocks and a whipping post, cost of collecting the public levy, hire of a horse and man. Whenever a military expedition was fitted out, the wages of officers and men and the other expenditures connected therewith appear in detail. The same is true if envoys or commissioners were sent on public errands. Messenger service often appears as an item in supply bills. Long lists of names of persons who have rendered special services also appear, with a statement of the sum due to each individual. The appropriation by South Carolina, in 1712, of £1000 with which to buy land and build a house for the governor indicates a special object of expenditure which proved to be of some importance in several of the provinces as the eighteenth century advanced.³ Owing to the lack generally of detailed appropriation acts at so early a date as 1690, it is not easy to speak at length of colonial expenditures. But it is believed that enough has already been said to indicate sufficiently their general character.

In New Netherland, and in proprietary New York until 1683, the finances, like all other public interests, were wholly under the control of the provincial executive. In New

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Netherland the officials who were immediately concerned with financial administration were the schout fiscal, the receiver-general, the commissaries, and the farmers of the customs and excise. The schout fiscal had as a part of his many duties that of enforcing the laws relating to trade,¹ navigation, and the excise, preventing smuggling, inspecting vessels, taking entries and clearances of vessels, issuing passes for trade on the North or South river, at times even of collecting duties. He was also concerned in prosecuting violations of the laws of trade. The receiver² was more closely connected with the actual work of collecting duties, while he was distinctively the treasurer or keeper of the provincial revenue, so far as it came from customs and the excise. Goods for export and import must be entered at his office. The fees of the weigh-house were paid at the same place. Prior to 1653 the receiver seems to have been concerned with the collection of the excise. But in that year its collection in New Amsterdam was farmed, and the two following years, under orders of the director and council, the same method was employed for the province at large. This mode of collection was followed probably during all of the remaining years of Dutch rule. In the later years of the province the collection of the customs was also farmed out. The collection of the tenth and of the fees of the weigh-house were also managed in the same way.

The farming of the excise was continued for a considerable period after the beginning of English rule. It was separately farmed at New York, Kingston, and Albany, the letting of the contracts at New York being a part of the duties of the secretary of the province and the vendue-master. The custom-house, by Andros’s time, was organized on the English model, with a collector and such other officers—controller, surveyor, and searcher—as the business of the office demanded. The collector held under appointment from the Duke of York.³ The other officials appear to have

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been appointed by the governor. With the office of collector was combined that of receiver of all the forms of revenue which accrued to the duke, even including the quitrents. It was this office, with its varied and responsible duties, which was held by William Dyer and afterwards by Lucas Santen and Matthew Plowman.

In all the provinces, except New Netherland and New York, customs revenue, as well as direct taxes, was levied exclusively under the authority of acts of the legislature. The legislature always determined the rates of duty, but it did not always specify the method of collecting it, or designate the officials who should administer the finances. The degree to which responsibility to the legislature was enforced, by audit of accounts or by other methods of control, also varied greatly in the different colonies and at different times. The tendency was for the legislature to assume, as time passed, more exclusive power of regulation.

In Maryland the port or tonnage duty and the export duty on tobacco were collected by the naval officers. It was paid by them to the treasurers, of whom there was one for each shore. Both the naval officers and treasurers were appointees of the governor. By the act of 1691, in South Carolina, the person who should hold the office of receiver was designated, and his salary was fixed at one-tenth of the duty which he should collect and pay into the treasury. The duty of administering the law was divided between the secretary and the receiver. In the office of the secretary entry was made by the exporter of his peltry, and a certificate was given him, on the presentation of which to the receiver and the payment of the duty, a permit was issued to export. In one or both of these offices a record was made of the merchants who owned the furs, and of the number, size, and marks of the bundles. The receiver was also given the right of search and seizure, and no vessel was permitted to receive despatches until the receiver reported that the master had cleared with him. By the act of 1700 the exporter was required to make a declaration under oath before a justice of the peace, and this was filed with the receiver as the evidence on which he should issue the permit

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to export. Since the act of 1703 greatly increased the dutiable list, the office of controller was added to assist in search and seizures. The public receiver was still designated in the act. He was also put under bond to account as often as required to the assembly, or a committee of the same, for all the revenue he collected. The system of customs duties was established by this act in essentially the form which it was to retain until the close of the proprietary period.

In Maryland and Pennsylvania the regulations contained in the laws concerning the entry and clearance of vessels and the collection of duties were very meagre and inadequate. Indirect taxation played so small a part in the early history of Pennsylvania that this will scarcely occasion surprise. It is also in harmony with the summary character of much of the early legislation in that province. A similar character attaches to many of the laws of Maryland, and in this, as in many other things, the legislature left to the proprietor and his officials discretionary power in what related to the collection of the tobacco duty.

In the English provinces, with the exception of New York, the proprietors and their officials were dependent from the first on their legislatures for appropriations. They could not tax without legislative authority. In the early laws of New Jersey and Pennsylvania this principle was expressly stated. In the other provinces it was acted upon. By 1660 that question had been settled in England, and the colonies began with the full advantage of English precedents in this matter. It was by withholding appropriations that the legislatures were chiefly able to bring pressure to bear on the provincial executives. This, however, became more distinctly a feature of colonial history in the eighteenth century than it was in the seventeenth. In the proprietary provinces salaries seem, so far as they existed, in all, or nearly all, cases to have been from the first subject to legislative grant. In Maryland, in 1642, the assembly imposed an export duty on tobacco for the support of the government. In 1650 it gave Governor Stone one-half bushel of corn per poll. The revenue from a poll tax payable in tobacco was given to the governor for about a decade after 1660. In

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1671 and thereafter, as has already been stated, one-half of the revenue from the export duty of 2s. per hogshead on tobacco was set apart for the support of the governor and council and for a supply of arms and ammunition.

After the middle of the century, the appropriation acts in Maryland became very detailed and specific. As early as 1657 an act that was intended to meet charges which had been incurred in finally reëstablishing proprietary government after the close of the administration by the commissioners of parliament, contained such items as the following:¹ payment for the use of a boat, care and victualling of prisoners, supply of shoes and stockings for the soldiers, a pension for a widow whose husband had been slain in the public service, relief for parties who were wounded or who had lost their crops, payment of a captain for a part of the expense which he had incurred in the public service. Provision was also made for paying the cost of negotiating with the Indians, for paying the clerk, doorkeeper, and guard of the assembly. The levy was raised and payments were apportioned by sections, corresponding more or less fully to counties. In the case of Patuxent county provision was made for charges which later find a place exclusively in local levies.

A similar appropriation act was passed in 1658, while orders of council concerning the levy of 1660 reveal a considerable variety of services for which payment was provided.² With the year 1669 the form of the annual appropriation act³ became fixed as it was to continue during the period. A full list of persons to whom sums were due, with the amount due to each, was prepared. Though the services for which the payments were demanded were not generally specified in the bill, yet the list, when completed, formed a very full itemized account. It was arranged by counties. The words of appropriation were then framed so as to cover the sums of the several accounts which made up

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the total. “Whereas there are severall sumes of Tobacco dew to severall persons from the Province, as by account hereunto Annexed at Large Appeareth, amounting in the whole to . . . pounds of Tobacco, as also . . . pounds of Tobacco to the Severall delegates from the Severall Counties for their Expenses at St. Maries during the Assembly, besides what they have for their Boates or other necessary Expenses in coming down to this Assembly. Be it enacted etc.” As expenditures increased, the list of items became larger and the acts contained an ever growing accumulation of details. Under this system,—and it was one which came to exist in many of the provinces,—though the treasurers were appointed by the proprietor or his governor, and though they paid out money exclusively on the governor’s warrant, the discretion of the executive in the matter of expenditures was effectively limited. The control of the assembly in Maryland was confirmed by the requirement that the treasurers should regularly account to it for the management of the revenue. Near the close of the early proprietary period the houses began appointing joint committees to state accounts, while the list of detailed appropriation acts show that accounts had long been stated with care.¹

The form of appropriation acts in South Carolina was somewhat different from that followed in Maryland, but it shows an equal resolution on the part of the commons to direct the course of expenditure. When providing, in 1685, for the building of watch-houses, it directed that the grand council should by warrants require the public receiver to pay all who should be concerned in doing the work. The wages of those who were to constitute the guard of the watch-houses were designated in the act. By an act of 1690 for maintaining a watch on Sullivan’s island, the receiver was required to keep accounts of expenditure and be ready to submit them to the assembly. Any surplus should be expended as the assembly saw fit. Later acts were equally specific, especially one passed in 1702 for maintaining lookouts and purchasing military supplies. In the revenue act of 1703 the receiver, as well as a controller,

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was designated in the law, and the former was put under oath and bond. This act also contained a clause threatening the receiver with a heavy fine if he diverted any of the revenue to purposes other than those designated in the statute. An act of 1706 contained an especially comprehensive appropriation clause. A specific sum was set aside for the payment of the salaries of ministers, while the rest was to go toward paying the public debts. Under this head the assembly undertook to designate those among the creditors of the province who were most in need of their money, and to direct the receiver to pay them first of all. The remaining creditors were to be paid in the order fixed by lot, the lots being drawn under the direction of a committee named in the act.¹ In 1707, when the fiscal regulations in South Carolina had fully developed, examiners were designated who should annually inspect the receiver’s books.

In early New Jersey and in East Jersey the acts were brief, and no special effort was made to specify the objects of expenditure. In two cases the wages of the assemblymen were designated and in one case those of the governor and council as well, while they were in attendance on the legislature.² Certain annual votes of salary to the governor also appear, as we have seen. In 1678 and 1682 province treasurers were designated in acts of supply. Local collectors and treasurers for special levies were repeatedly named in the laws.³ Much the same practice obtained in West Jersey. Until 1701, just at the close of the proprietary period, no effort was made to specify in detail the objects of appropriation, though on repeated occasions a definite annual salary was voted to the governor, and once at least to the speaker and the clerk of the assembly. In 1681 and 1682 the treasurers were named in the acts.⁴ In this province, however, the question of specific appropriations was no more important than it might have been in any New England colony,

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for ultimate popular control was secured through the election of nearly all officials.

The legislation of Pennsylvania on this subject did not, as a rule, go into details. Though the spirit of the province was favorable to very large legislative control over expenditures, as in the Jerseys, the machinery for exercising it was only imperfectly developed. Not until 1696, when the tax of a penny in the pound was levied for a second time, was an effort made to determine its expenditure. The province treasurer was named in the act. It was also specified that £300 should go for the relief of the friendly Indians on the Albany frontier, and £300 for the salary of the governor. The remainder should be used as the governor and council should order, to pay the debts and defray the expenses of the province. Full accounts should be rendered by the receiver to the governor and council, and by them to the assembly.¹ If, however, we are justified in drawing an inference from the remissness of officials in collecting this tax, one might conclude that the specifications concerning the use of the money may also have been ignored.