If any favour was shown in the law it was to the rich rather than to the poor, as no person could be charged more than twenty shillings for himself, family and servants, though ever so numerous; while all other families, under the number of twenty were charged per head.Poll taxes had always been odious, but this being also oppressive and unjust, it excited as it naturally must, universal detestation among the poor and middle classes.
The person known by the name of Wat Tyler, whose proper name was Walter, and a tiler by trade, lived at Deptford.The gatherer of the poll tax, on coming to his house, demanded tax for one of his daughters, whom Tyler declared was under the age of fifteen.The tax-gatherer insisted on satisfying himself, and began an indecent examination of the girl, which, enraging the father, he struck him with a hammer that brought him to the ground, and was the cause of his death.This circumstance served to bring the discontent to an issue.The inhabitants of the neighbourhood espoused the cause of Tyler, who in a few days was joined, according to some histories, by upwards of fifty thousand men, and chosen their chief.With this force he marched to London, to demand an abolition of the tax and a redress of other grievances.
The Court, finding itself in a forlorn condition, and, unable to make resistance, agreed, with Richard at its head, to hold a conference with Tyler in Smithfield, making many fair professions, courtier-like, of its dispositions to redress the oppressions.While Richard and Tyler were in conversation on these matters, each being on horseback, Walworth, then Mayor of London, and one of the creatures of the Court, watched an opportunity, and like a cowardly assassin, stabbed Tyler with a dagger, and two or three others falling upon him, he was instantly sacrificed.Tyler appears to have been an intrepid disinterested man with respect to himself.All his proposals made to Richard were on a more just and public ground than those which had been made to John by the Barons, and notwithstanding the sycophancy of historians and men like Mr.Burke, who seek to gloss over a base action of the Court by traducing Tyler, his fame will outlive their falsehood.If the Barons merited a monument to be erected at Runnymede, Tyler merited one in Smithfield.
32.I happened to be in England at the celebration of the centenary of the Revolution of 1688.The characters of William and Mary have always appeared to be detestable; the one seeking to destroy his uncle, and the other her father, to get possession of power themselves; yet, as the nation was disposed to think something of that event, I felt hurt at seeing it ascribe the whole reputation of it to a man who had undertaken it as a job and who, besides what he otherwise got, charged six hundred thousand pounds for the expense of the fleet that brought him from Holland.George the First acted the same close-fisted part as William had done, and bought the Duchy of Bremen with the money he got from England, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds over and above his pay as king, and having thus purchased it at the expense of England, added it to his Hanoverian dominions for his own private profit.In fact, every nation that does not govern itself is governed as a job.England has been the prey of jobs ever since the Revolution.
33.Charles, like his predecessors and successors, finding that war was the harvest of governments, engaged in a war with the Dutch, the expense of which increased the annual expenditure to L1,800,000as stated under the date of 1666; but the peace establishment was but L1,200,000.
34.Poor-rates began about the time of Henry VIII., when the taxes began to increase, and they have increased as the taxes increased ever since.
35.Reckoning the taxes by families, five to a family, each family pays on an average L12 7s.6d.per annum.To this sum are to be added the poor-rates.Though all pay taxes in the articles they consume, all do not pay poor-rates.About two millions are exempted- some as not being house-keepers, others as not being able, and the poor themselves who receive the relief.The average, therefore, of poor-rates on the remaining number, is forty shillings for every family of five persons, which make the whole average amount of taxes and rates L14 17s.6d.For six persons L17 17s.For seven persons L2O 16s.6d.
The average of taxes in America, under the new or representative system of government, including the interest of the debt contracted in the war, and taking the population at four millions of souls, which it now amounts to, and it is daily increasing, is five shillings per head, men, women, and children.The difference, therefore, between the two governments is as under:
England America L s.d.L s.d.
For a family of five persons 14 17 6 1 5 0For a family of six persons 17 17 0 1 10 0For a family of seven persons 20 16 6 1 15 036.Public schools do not answer the general purpose of the poor.They are chiefly in corporation towns from which the country towns and villages are excluded, or, if admitted, the distance occasions a great loss of time.Education, to be useful to the poor, should be on the spot, and the best method, I believe, to accomplish this is to enable the parents to pay the expenses themselves.There are always persons of both sexes to be found in every village, especially when growing into years, capable of such an undertaking.Twenty children at ten shillings each (and that not more than six months each year) would be as much as some livings amount to in the remotest parts of England, and there are often distressed clergymen's widows to whom such an income would be acceptable.Whatever is given on this account to children answers two purposes.To them it is education-to those who educate them it is a livelihood.
