A. D. 1763 "The duties upon cyder and perry made in England, to be under the receipt and management of the commiffioners and officers of excife there, and thofe in Scotland under like officers there. The commiffioners fhall appoint a fufficient number of officers, and the duties fhall be paid into the Exchequer apart from all other monies. "The makers of cyder and perry, not being compounders, fhall enter their names, and the mills, preffes or other utenfils, ftore houfes and other places to be made ufe of, at the next office of excife, ten days before they begin to work, under the penalty of twenty-five pounds for ufing any unentered place. "The officers of excife, upon request made, shall have free accefs, in the day time, to all places entered or made ufe of for making or keeping perry or cyder, and fhall gauge and report the contents to the commiffioners, leaving a copy for the maker. The duties shall be paid according thereto, within fix weeks from making fuch charge; and the ufual allowances shall be made in refpect thereof. "Persons intending to fell or remove any cyder or perry in their poffeffion made before the fifth of July, 1763, shall send a figned particular thereof to the next office of excife, ten days before the faid fifth of July, that the officer may take an account thereof, and grant certificates occafionally for the removal of a like quantity without charging the duty, &c. "No cyder or perry exceeding fix gallons fhall be removed, &c. without a certificate, on forfeiture thereof, with the package. Officers of the excife may feize the fame. A time shall be limited, for which the certificate fhell be in force. "Perfons making cyder or perry to be confumed in their own private families only, fhall be admitted to compound for the duties, they giving in a lift of the number in family, and paying at the rate of five fhillings per head per annum. This compofition to be renewed annually and the money paid down at the same time. The houses, &c. of perfons who fhall thus compound, fhall be exempted from furvey or fearch: but, upon increafe of the family, a new lift shall be given in, and five-pence per month, per head, shall be paid for the additional number, during the fubfifting unexpired term of the year. Compounders neglecting to deliver in fuch lifts, and to pay their compofition money, fhall be charged with the duty, and become liable to a furvey. Perfons delivering false or defective lifts, fhall forfeit twenty pounds. "Children under eight years of age fhall not be inserted in the lifts. Compounders may fell, difpofe of, or remove any cyder or perry more than fufficient for their own use, giving two days notice to the proper officer, who fhall attend, and take an account thereof, and charge the duties and report the fame to the excife office, leaving a copy with the compounder. Such cyder or perry shall not be afterwards removed without a certificate. Compounders being guilty of any fraud, in felling, exchanging, or delivering out cyder or perry, fhall forfeit twenty pounds. "No compounder fhall let out or lend his mill or other utenfils for making cyder or perry, without giving three days previous notice to the proper officer to attend and charge the duties; unless the cyder or perry be the property of another compounder, or of fome other person not liable to the duty; and no part of it shall be removed without a certificate, under a penalty of ten pounds. "Perfons using their own mills, &c. or procuring cyder or perry to be made at the mills, &c. of any other person, shall be deemed makers. Compounders for malt shall not be liable to compound or pay duties for cyder or perry, to be made and confumed in their own families, unless they fhall fell or otherwife difpofe of any 2. part A. D. 1763 part thereof; in which cafe, they fhall comply with the directions given with respect to compounders in like circumstances. "'Occupiers of tenements not rated above forty fhillings per annum to the land tax, and not making more than four hogfheads of cyder and perry in the whole year, thall be exempted from duties or compounding. "Thefe new duties on cyder and perry fhall be drawn back on exportation; and upon diftillation thereof into low wines and spirits; and upon the same being made into vinegar, and charged with duties as fuch. "The penalty of opposing an officer in the execution of his office, or of rescuing or flaving any cyder or perry after any seizure thereof, fhall be fifty pounds, for every fuch offence. Informations for offences against this act by the makers of cyder or perry, fhall be laid within three months after being committed; and notice thereof fhall be given them. "Persons aggrieved by the judgment of any justice of the peace touching the duties or penalties, may appeal to the quarter feffions, and the determination of the faid court fhall be final. "Appellants fhall give notice to the other parties, and the court fhall award cofts as they fee fit, to be levied by diftraint. "For want of fufficient time intervening, an appeal may be made to the fecond quarter feffions. "A re-hearing shall be had of the merits of the cafe upon appeals; and defects of form in the original proceedings may be rectified by the court. "All powers, rules, methods, penalties and clauses in a&t xii. Car. II. or in any other act relating to the revenue of excife, where not altered by this act, fhall be put into execution with respect to the duties on cyder and perry. "The penalties and forfeitures relating thereto, fhall be recovered or mitigated as by the laws of excife, or in the courts at Westminster, or the court of Exchequer in Scotland, and shall be employed, half to the use of the King, and half to him that shall sue. "The duty on cyder and perry brought from Jersey, Guernsey, Sark, or Alderney, shall be paid by the importer before landing, on penalty of being seized and forfeited. "The monies arifing by the respective duties granted by this act, fhall be entered in proper books in the auditors office, feparately from each other and from all other monies; and shall be a fund for the payment of the annuities chargeable on the principal fum of five millions borrowed on the credit of this act." The part of this act which related the duty on cyder and perry, with the mode of collecting it, was debated with uncommon violence in both Houses of Parliament, and a very strong protest was entered in the journals of the Houfe of Lords against it. Nay, fo general was the disapprobation of it, that many feared the revival of that spirit which was raised by a scheme of excife in the year 1733, when not only the political but perfonal existence of a great Minister was in imminent danger. The city of London not only inftructed its reprefentatives in Parliament, but petitioned the different branches of the legislature against it; while fome of the constant friends of administration withdrew their fupport on this occafion. Yet we now find that many persons of great property and political talents are become converts to this mode of raifing taxes, and do not hesitate to fupport the opinion, that an extenfion of the excife laws merely to objects, without enlarging the power, would produce a great public benefit, by the augmentation it would occafion in the public revenues. The A. D. 1763 The produce of South Carolina entered for exportation from the port of Charles-town, from the twenty-third of December 1761, the day the firft veffel with rice, of crop 1761, was cleared out, to the first of September 1762, both days inclufive. Rice, Indigo, 63,288 barrels. Staves, Shingles, Corn, 249,000 pounds weight. 157,880 674,740 23,194 bufhels. 3,980 barrels. 8 kegs. 103,293 feet. 100 boxes. Jefuits bark, 3 cafks. 122 ferons. Hides Tortoiseshell, 7 ferons. 2 casks. Of which, and the reft of the plunder, the firft diftribution amounted to five hundred and fixteen thousand one hundred and eighty-five pounds three fhillings. It appears by the Georgia Gazette, that from the fifth of January 1762, to the fifth of January 1763, the exports of that province were, Rice, Indigo, Deer skins, Beaver fkins, Pine timber, Pork, Shingles, Staves and heading, Beef, Indian corn, 7,440 barrels. 832 bundles. 13 bundles. 417,449 feet. 359,002 38 barrels. 1,250 bushels. In the fummer of this year, a very uncommon number of bankruptcies took place at Amfterdam, Hamburg, and several other principal towns in Germany. They began at Amfterdam the latter end of July, by the failure of two brothers of the name of Neuville, for between three and four hundred thousand pounds; and that of a Jew for a very confiderable fum. These two bankruptcies occafioned, or at leaft hastened a stoppage of payment, by no less than eighteen houses in that city: they were followed by a ftill greater number of failures at Hamburg and other places, which gave such a blow to private credit, as almost wholly to interrupt, for fome time, the courfe of commercial tranfactions. But the Lombard houfes at Amfterdam and Hamburg ftood forward on the occafion, and, by advancing large fums of ready money to fuch as could give a proper fecurity, reftored credit to its former functions, and liberated commerce from the oppreffions beneath which it had struggled. On this occafion feveral merchants, on fhewing their books to perfons appointed to examine them, were protected from arrests by the magiftrates: an exercise of power which had the A. D. 1763 public intereft for its object, and should be adopted, both as politic and humane, by the legiflature of every commercial country. Various were the conjectures concerning the caufes of thefe alarming failures. But they were chiefly attributed to the large fums of money left unpaid by the English and French armies, and to the incapacity or indifpofition of feveral of the German Princes, to call in the bafe money which they had found themfelves obliged to iffue, and had got into a very extenfive circulation during the courfe of the war. The marine fociety, with that truly patriotic fpirit which has ever animated its exertions, not only received all those boys, under fixteen years of age, which it had fent to sea, who thought proper, on being discharged from the King's fervice, to apply to them for affiftance, but even invited them to make application to their protection and affiftance. Of fuch the fo To the King's fea officers, who engaged to keep them for three years, 80 9 The Dublin fociety, infpired alfo by a fimilar zeal for the public good, propofed to the first hundred foldiers or failors who ferved his Majefty out of Great Britain or Ireland, and being honourably discharged from the service, should take leases of lives of any lands in the provinces of Leinster, Munfter, and Connaught, not lefs than five or more than twenty acres, in the year 1763, and hold the fame one year from their taking poffeffion of the faid lands, on producing a certificate of their industry, and being likely to continue, from the clergyman of the parish or two neighbouring juftices of the peace, five pounds each. And to the first ten landlords of the provinces of Leinster, Munfter, and Connaught, who fhould let fuch farms to fuch tenants as above, not lefs than five farms by each landlord, a gold medal. The trustees alfo for the forfeited eftates in Scotland, were not backward in offering the fame patriotic encouragement. They wished to reward thofe men, who had planted the British laurel in every quarter of the globe, by affording them a comfortable retreat after all their toils, and to continue their fervices to their country by enabling them to purfue the employments of peace. - For this moft laudable purpose, they promifed not only lands but materials for building and implements of cultivation, together with fishing boats, tackle, &c. and even money, to fuch reduced foldiers and failors, as fhould fettle on thefe eftates. And Sir Ludowick Grant and VOL. IV. B Mr. |