As licences are paid at once, if not exceedingly moderate, they may, in many cafes, be oppreffive.

Confectioners, perfumers, and hair-dreffers, might be fubjected to the payment of a licence with as much propriety as the retailers of fmall beer.

The coach duty may be reckoned a licence tax; being charged per tale, it is not liable to the objection of inequality.

A small duty, charged per ton on all ships and veffels, might be levied at little expence, and with great certainty.

Stamp-duties have, of late, become common; perhaps, that can be said in their favour, is, that they are cheaply collected. They point out no particular improvement by which they can be compensated, They are, in the first inftance, unequal, and cannot be retailed like impofts on merchandize or manufacture. In their payment, nothing is feen but the

tax.

"There are two ftates in Europe, (fays Montefquieu), where there are heavy impofts on liquor; in the one (England), the brewer alone pays the tax; in the other (Holland), it is indifcriminately levied upon all the consumers. In the first, nobody feels the rigour of the impoft; in the second, it is looked upon as a grievance."

Stamp-duties will always be obnoxious, and every effort will be made to evade them. There is no reason to apprehend, that before the receipt-tax can be made efficient, fuch encouragement must be given to informers, as may prove prejudicial to morals.

In fpite of Mr. Sherridan's affertion, taxes of this kind are perhaps, of all others, the leaft proper for a free people.

Farther explanations of the tendency of the regulations proposed in our last, respecting Imprisonment for Debt. It will easily be perceived, that the two great points aimed at in the foregoing regulations are, to throw bars in the way of wanton imprisonment of debtors; and to render it difficult for a bankrupt ever to live in ease and affluence until his just debts fhall have been all paid.

The only particular that will feem fingular, and will be liable to be misunderstood, is that regulation which permits every individual creditor, after the bankrupt's effects have been fold, and an equal dividend of the price of them has been made among the whole, to arreft the debtor's effects, and to apply the price of them towards the payment of his own debts only, without communicating any part of it to the other creditors: fome explanation of the reasons that fuggefted that regulation may therefore be neceffary.

It is found by experience, that where many perfons are alike interefted in any tranfaction, where the value of the whole is much greater than that of the feparate parts, an individual feldom chooses to take upon himself the disagreeable task of a profecutor, where others are to be equally benefited by that profecution as himself. On this account, it is found by experience, that after a bankrupt's effects have been once fold, and a dividend of them made, his creditors feldom ever think of recovering any more from him at a future pe riod; and therefore feldom hefitate about granting a discharge; fo that, should the debtor, in a very short time acquire affluence, his original creditors must be content to bear their lofs with patience. This circumftance is no doubt carefully remarked by thofe who have a fraudulent bankruptcy in view, the chance of its taking place carefully computed, and their conduct

VOL. I.

T t

regulated by that calculation. It therefore tends greatly to encourage fraudulent bankruptcies.

By the regulation here propofed, creditors in general will not be in a worse situation than they are at prefent; for those who never intend to look after the debtor from the time they receive the last dividend of the bankrupt's effects, will be precifely in the fame fituation as they are in at present. But thofe whofe circumftances make fuch forbearance extremely inconvenient for them, will be in a much better fituation than they are, as the law now ftands. They well know, that if the debtor has not acted fairly by his creditors, a few years will difcover that he is able to live in affluence; and as they will then, especially if their debts be small, by a strict attention to his conduct, be able, by diftrefs, to recover payment, they will be difpofed not to grant a difcharge till they fee very good reasons for their doing fo. A fraudulent debtor, in thefe circumftances, would find himself so narrowly watched by his individual creditors, that his fituation would never be an agreeable one; fo that mankind would have little inducement voluntarily to put themselves into that fituation.

Should it be faid that creditors who live in the neighbourhood of the debtor would thus have an advantage over thofe at a distance-this is admitted: But ftill thofe at a distance are no worfe than they are at prefent. They would even be better: For if it fhould appear that there was a chance of recovering any thing confiderable of their claim, they would always find fome person who would purchase the debt at a reasonable price.

By admitting a new bankruptcy to take place, where new debts had been contracted, and allowing the former creditors to rank equally, while the debtor's effects in the mean time were always liable to be carried off by the old creditors, bankrupts would find it more difficult to obtain credit than they now do, which would operate as an additional bar to the practice of fraudulent bankruptcies, and as a caution to avoid bankrupt

cies of any kind, as being attended with such disagree able confequences.

In fhort, though a poor man, who by misfortunes had contracted a fmall debt, could never, by these regulations, be deprived of the means of earning his bread; and would have a probable chance of difcharging his debts yet a man in a higher line of life who had contracted debts to a great amount, in particular to perfons who could ill fpare it, would find himfelf ever afterwards in circumstances unavoidably fo unpleasant, as to make them much more cautious in their fpeculations, and much more fcrupulous about contracting debts to a greater amount than they are at prefent. The confequences of which caution cannot fail to prove highly beneficial to the community.

The writer of these remarks, while he fubmits them to the public, thinks it his duty to inform that public, that they were written out fome years ago, and fince that time, they have been submitted to the confideration of several perfons, in whofe judgment he places confidence; and have been read in a very refpectable literary fociety; and that he finds the opinion of these persons not unanimous as to the expediency of the propofed regulations. Thofe among his friends who ftudied the fubject with the greatest attention, have approved of them; one gentleman only in a high law department did disapprove of them, without affigning the reafons. The objections that were ftarted at the literary fociety proceeded entirely, as he fuppofes, from a mifunderitanding the fpirit of thefe regulations, as they respected only the difficulty that would attend the carrying on profecutions against bankrupts, and the chance, that on account of these difficulties, few profecutions of this fort would be commenced. This is granted; and it was one principal object of these regulations to guard against fuch profecutions, under frivolous pretexts. It was meant that the effects of the bankrupt should go immediately into the hands of the creditors, with as few de

March 2, ductions from them as poffible; and that few temptations fhould be given for wafting thefe in needlefs or oppreffive law-fuits; fo that this objection only tends to fhew that the object aimed at has a chance of being accomplished.

It was again objected, that as the laws refpecting bankrupts ftand at present, it happens that in this country, the bankrupt oftener abufes his creditor, than that the creditor oppreffes his debtor; and that therefore any thing that diminishes the power of the creditor over the perfon of the debtor would be an act of ill-judged humanity.

This objection feems alfo to proceed from falfe reafoning. If debtors now are found to abuse their credi- . tors, the business of the legiflature fhould be to provide means for guarding against that abufe, by difcriminating between the innocent and the guilty, and by guarding the creditor against loffes by fraud, not by enabling him at pleasure to diftrefs the unfortunate; and it is believed that all the regulations above ftated tend to that point.

Creditors are in the firft place allowed to have recourfe to the most eafy and direct mode of obtaining poffeffion of the whole of the debtor's effects; and he has the ftrongeft inducement to disclose them fairly and candidly.

They are, in the next place, individually, granted a preference for obtaining payment of fuch part of their debts as remain undifcharged, after a dividend of effects fhall have taken place, that no perfon at prefent poffeffes in this country, and that no perfon ought of right to poffefs, but in a cafe of this fort. This certainly is a powerful means put within their reach of getting the better of the effects of a fraudulent bankruptcy, which they do not at prefent enjoy; and of courfe the fituation of creditors must be bettered by it.

By the fame regulation, the fituation of a fraudulent bankrupt is rendered much less agreeable than at prefent,