Here then we have a full view of the assembly's injustice; about which there has been so much insolent triumph! But let the proprietaries and their discreet deputies hereafter recollect and remember, that the same august tribunal, which censured some of the modes and circumstances of that act, did at the same time establish and confirm the grand principle of the act, viz. "That the proprietary estate ought, with other estates, to be taxed:" and thereby did in effect determine and pronounce, that the opposition so long made in various shapes to that just principle, by the proprietaries, was fundamentally _wrong_ and _unjust_. An injustice they were not, like the assembly, under any necessity of committing for the public good, or any other necessity but what was imposed on them by those base passions, that act the tyrant in bad minds; their selfishness, their pride, and their avarice.
I have frequently mentioned the _equitable intentions_ of the house in those parts of the act, that were supposed obscure, and how they were understood here. A clear proof thereof is found, as I have already said, in the actual execution of the act; in the execution of it before the contest about it in England; and therefore before their lordships' objections to it had a being. When the report came over, and was laid before the house, one year's tax had been levied: and the assembly, conscious that no injustice had been intended to the proprietaries, and willing to rectify it if any should appear, appointed a _committee_ of members from the several counties to examine into the state of the proprietaries' taxes through the province, and nominated on that committee a gentleman of known attachment to the proprietaries, and their chief justice, Mr. Allen; to the end that the strictest inquiry might be made. _Their report_ was as follows: "We, the committee appointed to inquire into, and consider the state of the proprietary taxation through the several counties, and report the same to the house, have, in pursuance of the said appointment, carefully examined the returns of property, and compared them with the respective assessments thereon made through the whole province; and find, _first_, That no part of the _unsurveyed_ waste lands belonging to the proprietaries have, in any instance, been included in the estates taxed. _Secondly_, That some of the _located uncultivated_ lands belonging to the proprietaries in several counties _remain unassessed_; and are not in any county assessed higher, than the lands under like circumstances belonging to the inhabitants. _Thirdly_, That all _lands_; _not_ granted by the proprietaries, _within boroughs_ and towns, remain _untaxed_; excepting in a few instances, and in those they are rated as _low_, as the lands which are granted in the said boroughs and towns. The whole of the proprietary tax of eighteen pence in the pound amounts to 566_l._ 4_s._ 10_d._ And the sum of the tax on the inhabitants for the same year amounts, through the several counties, to 27,103_l._ 12_s._ 8_d._ And it is the opinion of your committee, that there has not been any injustice done to the proprietaries, or attempts made to rate or assess any part of their estates higher than the estates of the like kind belonging to the inhabitants are rated and assessed; but, on the contrary, we find that their estates are rated, in many instances, below others.