The Rights of Man - Thomas Paine (best fiction books of all time .txt) 📗

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. ↩

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 closefisted 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.

For the above footnote the following was substituted by Paine in the cheap edition (Symonds, 1792):

“On page 116 of the original edition of this work is a note in which similar remarks are made on the characters of William and Mary, the one fighting against his uncle, and the other against her own father, as have been made by other writers. Dr. Johnson, I believe, even while he was a pensioner of the present court, expressed himself in stronger terms of disapprobation than I have done. Why a change of policy has now taken place, of prosecuting at this time, what was permitted and apparently encouraged at another time, the persons concerned can best explain. In the same note it is stated that William charged six hundred thousand pounds for the expences of the Dutch fleet that brought him from Holland; and that George the First purchased the Duchies of Bremen and Verden with two hundred and fifty thousand pounds, which he got from England, and added them to his Hanoverian dominions for his own The note in which these matters are contained are put into the prosecution; but for what purpose I do not discover.

“The bill of costs delivered in for the Dutch fleet, as stated in Sir John Sinclair’s History of the Revenue (Part the third, p. 40) was £686,500, and was reduced to £600,000 by parliament. And in 1701 the House of Commons came to a resolution, by which it appears that William was not very scrupulous or very careful in his expenditure of English money. The resolution is as follows:⁠—‘That it is notorious that many millions of money had been given to his majesty (meaning the said William) for the service of the public, which remain yet unaccounted for.’ See the Journal.

“As to the purchase of Bremen and Verden, with the money obtained from England, by George the First, the Journals of Parliament will prove the fact, and the opposition it met with in parliament will shew the manner in which it was very generally considered by the faction.” —⁠Conway ↩

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 £1,800,000 as stated under the date of 1666; but the peace establishment was but £1,200,000. ↩

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. ↩

Reckoning the taxes by families, five to a family, each family pays on an average £12 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 housekeepers, 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 £14 17s. 6d. For six persons £17 17s. For seven persons £2O 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 £ s. d. £ s. d. For a family of five persons: 14 17 6 1 5 0 For a