Part 16

Footnote 61:

R.I. Col. Recs. II, 510.

Footnote 62:

Taxation according to "strength and estate," as it usually reads, is the almost unvarying form in which these early colonists expressed their idea of equality in taxation. It would be difficult to find a better expression.

Footnote 63:

Payment however must be made in what may be kept in a store house three months without damage.

Footnote 64:

This is explained as follows, "or that is accordinge to tenn upon the hundred a yeare forbearance". This and a like reference further on in the text would seem to show that it was ten per cent interest which was to be charged on rates not paid when due and that the usual rate of interest was five per cent.

Footnote 65:

The only case before the time of Andros was the farthing in the pound tax levied at the time of the passage of the law. Very little seems to have been received from this tax. The following provision of the law may afford some explanation. "All rates to be paid in country pay, accordinge to price of wooll twelve pence a pound; and to vallue their estates according as it would be worth to pay a debt in old England." It was added by way of explanation at the next session, "every penny of English money to be the value of four pence here." From other laws &c., it appears that the English pound sterling was only a little more than twice as valuable as the pound of "country pay" so that a valuation at the rate of four to one would be an undervaluation. And again, wool was usually received in payment at six or seven pence a pound so that payment at the rate of wool twelve pence a pound would be payment in a depreciated currency.

Footnote 66:

It should be noted however that the magistrates were also members of the councils of the towns in which they lived.

Footnote 67:

It was a common thing to make the rate makers, whether appointed by the town or the assembly, responsible for the rate in case it was not made. The same is true for the constables and sergeants in case it was not collected. The reasons for the non-payment of taxes seem to have been political rather than economic. All through this period, particularly in the early part, the central government, as we have said, was weak and the colony was torn by dissensions. There does not seem to have been entire harmony between the main land and the island, and it was in the main land towns and outlying districts that the greatest difficulty was found in collecting taxes. Warwick protested strongly against paying her portion of the £600 tax to pay Clarke in 1664, (R.I. Col. Recs. II, 78) claiming that most of the time Clarke had been merely the agent of the island. If the tax must be levied, the town prayed that it might be levied on the Indians who had intruded on their lands and stolen their goods, or by "just fines and amersements, layd upon such in the Collony as have not only gone about, but allso have betrayed the Collony." This tax was not collected in Warwick for six or seven years. There were also internal dissensions in the towns themselves, particularly in Providence where the opposing parties seem to have been of nearly equal strength. In 1641, the inhabitants of Pawtuxet, an outlying district of Providence, submitted to Massachusetts jurisdiction and was not permanently reunited to Rhode Island until 1658, (Arnold I, 111). Until 1703 the conflicting claims in Narragansett country continued to interfere seriously with the exercise of jurisdiction in that country, sometime rendering it altogether impossible. Another cause which rendered collection difficult was the custom of offsetting debts due from the colony against rates. One of the provisions enacted at the same time with the sedition act was "neither shall any persons plea that the Collony is in his debt, be of any force or offset to his or their said rate on that pretence, untill the end be answered for which the rate is or shall be made." Similar acts were passed on many other occasions. Nevertheless offsetting rates against debts was customary and the practice is authorized by a general law of 1684. (R.I. Col. Recs. III, 165)

Footnote 68:

R.I. Col. Recs. II, 438: The act speaks of "a covetous or ffactious and mallicious sperritt appeeringe in sundry townes and places of this Collony; who oppose all or any rates, and thereby prevailinge, by their deluded adherents in overpowering the more prudent and loyall partys in such towne and place, to the frustration of the most necessary and needfull ends for which such rates are levied."

Footnote 69:

Arnold I, 356.

Footnote 70:

It does not seem quite clear whether this provision means merely that each town should be represented, or that each town should have its full representation. Arnold (I, 365) thinks the latter. When the tax of 1673 was levied no deputies are recorded as being present from New Shoreham (Block Island) or Westerly. The great distance in the one case and the interference of Connecticut in the other, rendered attendance from those towns very uncertain and may have caused their absence to be necessarily disregarded. Only five deputies from Newport and one from Warwick however are reported as "engaged." This would make it seem doubtful if a complete representation was actually required. An act of April, 1678, (R.I. Col. Recs. III, 6.) repealed this act of 1672, and provided that the general assembly should consist (as provided in the charter) of the governor or deputy governor with six assistants, "and soe many of the freemen as shall be elected in each respective towne, x x x or the major part of them then present," who should have to make laws and levy taxes, provided however that no tax should be levied without notice given to each town, that the "townes may accordingly by their representatives give their due attendance." A year later the restriction was removed and the assembly resumed its old powers. (R.I. Col. Recs. III, 53).

Footnote 71:

Arnold II, 502: Under the Andros government (in the case of the per centage taxes and the £120 tax ordered in December, 1688) a return seems to have been made to the system of assessment by town councils. A copy of a warrant, dated July 20, 1687, from John Usher, treasurer and receiver general of his majesty's revenue in New England, to the constable and selectmen of Providence is preserved among the papers of the historical society. The constable is ordered to call a town meeting for the choice of a "commissioner" who, with the selectmen, is to make a list of all males over sixteen and "a true Estimation of all reall & personall Estates," as provided in the act of Andros and council, and then to assess a poll tax of 1s. 8d. (members of his majesty's council exempt) and a property tax of a penny in the pound. The commissioner was then to meet with the commissioners of the other towns of the county (Rhode Island), when as a body they were to "examine x x & correct & perfect" the rate lists according to the true meaning of the act and transmit the result to Usher, together with the names of the constables in each town to whom warrants for collection were to be issued. I have not been able to find the act of Andros and his council here referred to, but it seems to have included the provisions contained in the warrant and also a table of values at which the different kinds of property were to be estimated. It is in these taxes levied by Andros that we first meet with the poll tax which was soon to become a part of the regular system of taxation adopted by the colony.

Footnote 72:

These proceedings are to be found in the town records Vol. III, p p. 12-15. A table of values such as that given in the text was not always adopted when a rate was to be levied, but the rate of assessment seems often to have been left to the discretion of the assessors. In the case of the £160 rate of 1684 a committee was appointed to "Consider what lands may be deemed Rateable." The committee report "That all Meadowes & Orchards & all other improved lands what so Ever it is yt is inclosed, is Rateable, and as for Cattell, That all Sorts of Cattell upward of a yeare old are Rateable," but no table of values is reported. The number of assessors varied from three to five. They were prominent men of the community and there was a tendency to reelect the same individuals for the service. In a list of twenty-two assessors appointed between 1678 and 1687 there are only eleven different individuals.

Footnote 73:

The following is the account of the rateable estate of Daniel Abbott, like Whipple a prominent citizen. "My house & Land at home, & yt in ye neck that seem to be fenc't, and ye 3d part of a share of meddow in my Custody wth ye demolished orchard of Tho. walling. 2 Cows, one of them farrow, a of 3 yeares & vantage steers one horse, & one Maire 5 poor swine and as oe household-things you may be pleased to vew them yorselves, we have but one poor bed of or owne Saith Daniell Abbott Memoorand a yoak of oxen yet." An entry on the back of this list shows that about 290-1/2 acres of land had been laid out to Abbott, more than the usual amount it would appear. Much of it was probably wild land. An entry in the colonial records (II, 415), in 1671, shows us also the character of property at the time. The inhabitants of Westerly petitioned the assembly to send thither persons to take an "inventory of their personal estate." The assembly accordingly delegated certain persons to "take an exact inventory of the personal estate of each inhabitant, consisting either of house, household stuff, goods, cattle, horse kinde, or any other chattels whatever."

Footnote 74:

"The first grand period of Rhode Island history, the formation period, was ended. The era of domestic strife and outward conflict for existence, of change and interruption, of doubt and gloom, anxiety and distress, had almost passed. The problem of self-government was solved, and a new era of independent action commenced". (Arnold I, 519)