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saddle and light carriages. To those, and for these uses, their fleetness and beauty will recommend them. Besides these there will be other valuable substitutes when the cultivation of tobacco shall be discontinued, such as cot! ton in the eastern parts of the state, and hemp and flax in the western.

It is not easy to say what are the articles either of necessity, comfort, or luxury, which we cannot raise, and which we therefore shall be under a necessity of importing from abroad, as every thing hardier than the olive, and as haray as the fig, may be raised here in the open air Sugar, coffee and tea, indeed, are not between these limits; and habit having placed them among the necessaries of life with the wealthy part of our citizens, as long as these habits remain we must go for them to those countries which are able to furnish them.

QUERY XXI.

THE weights, measures and the cur rency of the hard money? Some details relating to exchange with Europe?

Our weights and measures are the same which are fixed by acts of parliament in England.... How it has happened that in this as well as the other American states the nominal value of coin, was made to differ from what it was in the coun try we had left, and to differ among ourselves too, I am not able to say with certainty. I find

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that in 163 1 our house of burgesses desired of the privy council in England, a coin debased to twenty five per cent that in 1645 they forbid dealing by barter for tobacco, and established the Spanish piece of eight at six shillings, as the standard of their currency: that in 1655 they changed it to five shillings sterling, In 1680 they sent an address to the king, in consequence of which, by proclamation in 1683, he fixed the value of French crowns, rix dollars, and pieces of eight at six shillings, and the coin of New-England at one shilling. That in 1710, 1714, 1727, and 1762, other regulations were made, which will be better presented to the eye stated in the form of a table as follows:

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The first symptom of the depreciation of our present paper money, was that of silver dollars selling at six shillings, which had before been worth but five shillings and nine-pence. The assembly thereupon raised them by law, to six shillings. As the dollar is now likely to become the money-unit of America, as it passes at this rate in some of our sister states, and as it facilitates their computation in pounds and shillings, &c. converso, this seems to be more convenient than its former denomination. But as this particular coin now stands higher than any other in the proportion of 133 1-3 to 125, or 16 to 15, it will be necessary to raise the others in proportion.

QUERY XXII.

THE public income and expences?

The nominal amount of these varying constantly and rapidly, with the constant and rapid depreciation of our paper-money, it becomes impracticable to say what they are. We find ourselves cheated in every essay by the depreciation intervening between the declaration of the tax and its actual receipt. It will therefore be more satisfactory to consider what our income may be when we shall find means of collecting what our people may spare. I should estimate the whole taxable property of this state at an hundred millions of dollars, or thirty millions of pounds our money. One per cent. on

this, compared with any thing we ever yet paid would be deemed a very heavy tax. Yet I

think that those who manage well, and use rea. sonable economy, could pay one and a half per cent. and maintain their houshold comfortably in the mean time, without aliening any part of their principal, and that the people would submit to this willingly for the purpose of supporting their present contest. We may say then, that we could raise, and ought to raise, from one million to one million and a half of dollars annually, that is from three hundred to four hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Virginia money.

Of our expences it is equally difficult to give an exact state, and for the same reason. They are mostly stated in paper money, paper money, which varying continually, the legislature endeavors at every session, by new corrections, to adapt the nominal sums to the value it is wished they would bear.. I will state them therefore in real coin, at the point at which they endeavor to keep them.

The annual expences of the general

The governor

assembly are about

The council of state

Their clerks

Eleven judges

Dollars.

20,000

3,533 1-3 10,666 2-3

1,166 2.3

11,000

The clerk of the chancery

The attorney general

Three auditors and a solicitor

666 2-3

1,000

5,333 1-3

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The public printer

Clerks of the inferior courts

Public levy: this is chiefly for the

expences of criminal justice

Dollars.

1,666 2-3

43,333 1-3

40,000

County levy, for bridges, court

houses, prisons, &c.

40,000

Members of Congress

7,000

Quota of the Federal civil list, sup

15,000

posed one sixth of about 78,000
dollars

Expences of collecting, six per cent.

'on the above

The clergy receive only voluntary contributions: suppose them on an average one-eighth of a dollar a tythe on 200,000 tythes Contingencies to make round numbers not far from truth

12,310

25,000

7,523 1-3

250,000

Dollars, or 53,571 guineas. This estimate is exclusive of the military expence. That varies with the force actually employed, and in time of peace will probably be little or nothing. It is exclusive also of the public debts, which are growing while I am writing and cannot therefore be now fixed. So it is of the maintenance of the poor, which being merely a matter of charity cannot be deemed expended in the administration of government. And if we strike out the 25,000 dollars for the services of the clergy, which neither makes part of that administration, more than what is paid to physicians, or lawyers, and being voluntary, is either

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