Page:The Scourge - Volume 9.djvu/13

Such are the appellations conferred by the minister and the public, on one of the most obnoxious and oppressive impositions that ever tried the loyalty, or awakened the remonstrances of the British public. The title, however, appears to be approaching, at least, to a complete misnomer, and in a few years will probably be extinct It will be a task of some small difficulty, even for the most sagacious of our very able and intelligent ministers, to continue a tax on that which no longer exists, and certainly, if the passing scenes of ministerial profusion, princely gaiety, clerical supplication, and all the other varieties of form in which the public purse is robbed and exhausted, continue for ten years longer, so far from paying an income or property tax, we shall have neither income nor property to be taxed: unless, indeed, we follow the example of certain personages to whom the common principles of honesty, are only the objects of contempt or laughter; and by swindling a jeweller, or defrauding a good-natured friend, after seducing his wife, regard the clamours of our creditors, and the reprobation of mankind with equal indifference.

In former periods, when some slight regard was expressed to the wishes of the people, and some sensations of reluctance and sensibility were displayed by the ministry, in the imposition of every new tax, and the establishment and adoption of every new source of national expence, the language of free and vehement remonstrance was unnecessary. It is remarkable that from the year 1714, after the avaricious and speculating Duke of Marlborough had been dismissed from office, till the commencement of Lord North's administration, the pressure of the public taxes, and the enormity of the public revenue, were