A PROPOSAL To Raise Forty Thousand Pounds Per Annum: Without any Trouble or Expence in Collections, And the Nation shall gain One Hundred Thousand Pounds Yearly, by the Payment thereof.
A Repeal of the Law made in the Twenty Fifth Year of King Charles II. that took off Aliens Duties.
BY a Law made in the Third Year of Henry the Seventh,Anno 3. Hen. 7. cap. 2. all Persons that are not the Natural-Born Subjects of England, are injoyned the Payment of Aliens Duties, notwithstanding Denization or Naturalization by Act of Parliament.
BY a Law made in the same Year, it is Enacted, That whosoever shall Enter, or cause to be Enter'd and Goods in any other Merchants Name than the true Merchant-Owner of the same,3 Hen. 7. c. 7. he shall Forfeit his Goods, be Imprison'd, and Fin'd at the King's Pleasure.
IN the Second and Third Years of Edward VI. it is Enacted,Anno 2. & 3. Edw. 6. cap. 22. That if any Person shall Enter any Goods, whereby the King shall lose this Custom, her shall Forfeit all his Goods and Chattels Personal; One Moiety to the King, the other to him that shall Sue for the same.
IN the First Year of Queen Elizabeth Aliens Duties are called,Anno 1. Eliz. cap. 13. the Ancient Revenue of the Crown, and it is there Enacted, That if any Person shall Ship any Goods upon a Foreign Bottom, he shall pay Aliens Duties.
BY these good Laws, our English Merchandize and Navigation was preserved; which are render'd ineffectual by the aforesaid Law, which took off Aliens Duties; and our English Merchandize and Navigation to Holland, Flanders, Germany, Dantzick, &c. is hereby almost totaly lost. So that an Exact Payment of Aliens Duties will undoubtedly advance the foresaid Sum of Forty Thousand Pounds per Annum.
BY This Law the Merchant-Alien is upon a better foot than the English Merchant. At Danzick, an English Merchant is not permitted to Sell his Goods to Strangers coming into the Town, but to the Burgers themselves; when the Merchants of Dantzick can send for their Goods to England upon as easie Terms as the English.
The English Merchant at Hambro can't sent his Goods out of the Town to any of the great Marts in Germany; when the Merchants of Hambro and Breme can send to England for their Goods, and have them as Cheap as the English Merchant, and then send them up to those Marts, which is now practised.
A Dutch Merchant can hereby imploy a Stock in England by an Agent of his, living in a Garret, at a Packer's House (and pay to Taxes, when the Burthen is very heavy upon the Native Subject) and Under-Trade the English Merchant.
By this Alteration our English Manufactures have been much debased, to the lessening their Consumption abroad, and many severe Losses have fallen upon our Manufacturers.
I. BY the Repeal of this Law English Merchants will be incouraged to Trade again, which instead of One per Cent, (which is now the Dutch Commission) can't be supposed to bring less than Six per Cent. Profit to our own Nation, which will soon make up above Fifty Thousand Pounds per Annum profit to our own Nation.
II. OUR English Ships will hereby Earn Fifty Thousand Pounds per Annum more than they now do. Not one English Ship in Fifty is now imploy'd in carrying our Plantation Goods, Woollen-Manufactures, Lead, Tin, Leather, &c. to Holland, Breme, Flanders and Germany. The Imployment of Ten Thousand Seamen will hereby be gained, which will be as servicable to the Nation upon any Extraordinary Occasion, as if kept in the Kings Pay; with many other Advantages, Which is Humbly Offered to the Consideration of the Parliament.