History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I, Part 7

Author: Shaw, William H
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: [United States :]
Number of Pages: 840

USA > New Jersey > Essex County > History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I > Part 7
USA > New Jersey > Hudson County > History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I > Part 7

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Nor was it a very productive population, measured by the returns of commerce. The sugar and tobacco Colonies did a large trade, and were highly prized by England. In 1714, the Plantation exports to England were estimated at £1,000,000; of which New York sent only £27,000 and New England, £41,000, while St. Christopher sent £88,000; Virginia and Maryland, $317,000; Jamaica and Barbadoes together, 2595,000. The imports were in like pro- portion and amounted to £700,000. The difference of £300,000 went to rich plantation owners in Eng- land, and the Lords of Trade represented to the King, as deductions from this table, that "the sugar and tobacco Colonies are of greatest advantage, and deserve most regard. The others are most popu- lous, produce more of what England does, and are capable of subsisting without any dependence on it." Besides, "they supply the sugar Colonies with pro- visions and manufactures which England had formerly the advantage of furnishing them, and carry back sugar and other produce, which is consumed there, and the benefit is lost." The proportions of trade are now a hundred-fold reversed, and why ? Because, though little trade came to New York or New Jersey, or went from them they have a wealth that statisti- cians and Lords of Trade are wont to pass over, even in our day-a people who tilled their own fields, sat at their own firesides, and doubled in number every twenty-five years. The far-seeing patriot will never be deceived by mere figures as to manufac- ture and trade. He will look at the homes and the men.

But these people had very little money. Like all agricultural populations, they were in debt. Money goes where it can be turned over and over, not to the woods and fields. Again and again we find complaint of the lack of money, even to make exchanges, banks and capital to lend on mortgage, or invest, were wanting.

Even the humblest home products were made under the constant and jealous inspection of the Lords of Trade and the Governors, who were required to prevent tratfie in linen or woolen goods made in the Colonies, and to close all rolling or slitting mills, and forges with trip-hammers, for carrying iron beyond the state of the pig or the bloom. The Governor

actually had to report the homespun of Somerset ; for which he apologizes, saying that a few sheep must be kept for good farming, and that the home- made garments really cost more but employed the otherwise idle hands. Indeed, the Colonists needed little money. With game, oysters and fish, free range for cattle, plenty of skins for the universal leather breeches, and wool for homespun, they lived comfortably so long as they could keep clear of taxis.

Those they did keep clear of. We taxed mortals hardly understand the seeming suddenness of the stand taken by our forefathers against British taxa- tion. We submit to innovations and tyrannies enough, -to elevated railroads, underground boilers, electric light wires charged with death-currents, taxes and assessments. It generally takes time and some good reason for the whole community to wake up to a grievance. We understand the Colonial resistance to taxes better when we find that "no taxation" had been the people's war-cry for fifty years before the Revolution.

Yet these taxes were very small. The whole ex- penses of Colonial Government rose slowly from £1,000, in 1702, to £3,000, in 1770, or from $3,300 to $10,000. In 1883, with a population only ten times as large, we pay one hundred times as much for State Government and as much more for School Tax, and this for the State Tax alone, which in most places is a tithe of those city and county taxes of which our forefathers had none. Per capita, we pay from fifty to one thousand times as much as they did. t)f course, this shows increased wealth as well as in- creased taxation. But by the value of property, their tax was very small, as we shall see. At most it was the same percentage on the income of improred lands as we now pay on the ralue of all lunds.

The real cause of their jealousy of taxation was that, of the whole amount raised, about half went to the Governor or in rent of his house, and that the Governor was often a foreigner, and always, or almost always, the centre of a clique who were odious to the people. He was at best more tolerated than liked. Colonial Government by a favorite of the Crown or of the London trade management,-who was always looking to England for promotion, while he haughtily requested support for his high mighti- ness from the people here, and at the bidding of his patrons negatived the most desired laws, -such gov- ernment had the advantage of rousing a jealousy and vigilance which were probably more conducive to true freedom than what we now call popular institu- tions. Certainly, the Governor had no sinecure. Depending for office on the favor of distant English monopolists and grandees, who sent him the most in- tricate instructions, and looking for his support to a Provincial Assembly who knew their own affairs much better than he, and were determined to have

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

their way, the best Governors (such men as Burnet, Belcher and Bernard) got along by ceaseless atten- tions and flattery to both parties, while pressing on cach the need of mutual concession. Under the un- popular Governors, whether lordly dare-devils, like Cornbury, or ambitious and self-willed men, like Morris, gifted with temper and uncontrol, letters poured over to London by every vessel, with charges and counter-charges, reproofs, suggestions, defences and suspicions, until the little provincial capital boiled as only a little tea-pot can. A better system to promote jealousies than the colonial could hardly be devised. Communications were regularly ordered to be made to the Lords of Trade, but every member of the Governor's Council was instructed to write directly and secretly to the Secretary on matters of State ; and all quarrels in a province became, or were thought matters of State, if not high treason. Com- munication was so irregular (the monthly packets to New York and to the West Indies not being established until 1755), that it became absolutely nec- essary to have friends at Court ; and at last the Assem- bly spent about one-quarter of the tax levy in paying a London agent to represent them before the Lords of Trade and the Council. Governor Cosby sus- pended Lewis Morris as Chief Justice for alleged tyranny over the Bar, inattention to duty and drink- ing. But Morris went to England, got the Governor's action reversed, claimed the Presidency of the Coun- cil on the Governor's sudden death, and actually got the appointment as Governor in his room. No wonder that the appropriation bill for the support of such a government was the battle of each year, and that the question of taration by the Crown became a vexed boundary, on which the whole country-side would rally.

The taxes, as we have seen, were little enough- $3,300 to $10,000 a year; half to the twvernment, $500 to $1,000 to the Chief Justice, something to the second Judge, Clerk of Council, Doorkeepers and Clerk of Assembly, and $250 for printing. The As- semblymen received half a dollar a day and some mileage. The Council had only the honor of the po- sition. Accounts were simple enough. The Assem- bly were their own comptrollers, and copies of the ac- counts went to the many records of the English Rolls Office, where they are indexed, recorded and filed in oblivion to this day. There only can we find our New Jersey history or a complete copy of our own laws.

The supply bills of the time are curious reading, and all on a model very different from modern tax laws. Each bill grants a supply for Government, never for over a few years, generally one or two. It fixes salaries and quotas for each county, and names county assessors and treasurers. It then orders rates to be assessed within certain limits, in the discretion of the assessors. For instance, the Act of 1756, raising £3,000, orders rates of-

1-30 shillings on householders.

2-40

on merchants.

5-80

on Raw-mills.

4-80

on grist-mills.

4-40

on fulling-mills.

30-70

on furnaces.

7-35

.€

on forges.

on glass-houses.

120

on molasses stills.

4-80

on ferries.

4-15

on trading sloops.

on cartmen.

on laboring men.

on n bought servant.

44 on a coach.

on a chaise.

1 4

on a chair.

£1-£2

on queddlers.

The rest of the quota is ordered to be raised by pro ruta assessment in the county, on cattle (valued at 25 shillings a head, on sheep (at 3 shillings a head), and on all tracts of land of which a part is improved or cultivated, valuing such tracts within sums fixed for each county, the lowest lawful assessment being £8, or say $27, for one hundred acres, and the highest, £40, or say $133, per hundred acres. The usual valuation, even in 1770, was about $60 or $70 for a hundred acres of improved land, which Governor Franklin states was not much more than the rental value at that time. Beyond this, there was no tax except work on the roads and bridges, of which there were very few.

In practical wisdom we have much to learn from our ancestors as to taxation, though we may teach them as to currency and credit. They taxed visibles only, on which the tax was certain to be assessed. They taxed improved property only, from which the tax could readily be collected by distraint or other- wise. Such a tax fell lightly on the community, because the yearly value of the land would always pay the tax. They recognized the truth that a certain tur on any one kind of property is a tar on all property. We try to tax uncertainties and invisibles, rights, credits, book accounts and unproductive speculative property, and in consequence sharpers dodge our taxes and land-sharks buy up tax-titles, while honest folk are forced to pay for other people, and if poor and unable to advance the money assessed on unpro- ductive property, have to submit to endless interest, forfeitures and penalties. If the old system did nothing else, it got the taxes in, instead of postponing them, as we do, borrowing meanwhile.

In seven years after the surrender of the Crown in 1709, there came a sudden call for an expedition against the French in Canada, and New Jersey, as ever, was at the front, with a vote of £3,000, to be raised on bills of credit. These were to be receivable for taxes, to be sunk in a few years by tax levy, and meanwhile to be a legal tender. Bonded debt, paya- ble in long time, with interest, was then unknown, or, at least, uncommon. Kings usually borrowed of the Jews or issued paper money, and the Colony took the latter course. In 1714 we find the Assembly waking

TAXES AND MONEY IN NEW JERSEY BEFORE THE REVOLUTION.

to protective measures, and they lay a duty on slaves, in order to encourage white immigration, and an export duty on wheat, to benefit flouring mills, But as they waked to a sense of their commerce, so did England, and in 1721, when Governor Burnet is con- missioned, he is specially ordered to sign no act for paper money except for support of Government, with- out a clause suspending its operation till approved by the King, to keep a monopoly of trade to English ships, and to allow no furs or copper ore to go to any [] ce but England.

Meanwhile, with improvement came a strong demand for more circulating medium. There seems to have been a real dearth of silver at the time. England's new trade in the East Indies drew money there, while the neighboring States of Pennsylvania and New York had adopted bills of credit, which were legal tender with them but not in New Jersey, and there was really no money to pay taxes, etc., since the produce of New Jersey sold only for bills of the neighboring States. Accordingly an act was passed to allow the issue of £40,000 of paper money.

The terms of this issue (as of all the ante-Revo- lutionary bills issned in time of peace) were somewhat peculiar. A loan commission was incorporated by

the act in each county, and the proportion of the issue belonging to that county was to be lent by them at five per cent. interest on good first mortgage security, payable in sixteen years, in equal annual installments, the installments of the first eight years being lent out again. Thus the Government was more than supported on the interest, while the principal was to be used as it fell due, to cancel the bills of credit. If honestly managed, the whole fund was soundly secured, aud the bills would be kept in good standing. This the State did not borrow money at all, and a good currency for internal affairs and a sound system of loans on mortgage, at reasonable interest, were at once obtained. Much to the credit of our State, its bills, unlike the Continental curreney, were always honestly sunk when due.

The evils of the system were more remote, but were those incident to any inflexible legislative sys- tem of banking: namely, that if continued, there was danger of over-issue, such as had reduced the value of New England currency, so that a guinea was worth £5; while on the other hand, if the bills were sunk, the calling in of the loans would cause distress. The system honestly carried out would probably have been unobjectionable, if there had been grafted upon it the device discovered and adopted by modern bank- ers, of maintaining a coin reserve, which, if kept up continually to a proportion-often a small proportion- of the bills issued, will of itself avail for specie pay- ment, and indieate by its decrease whether the issue is too large for the natural trade of the country, for which alone paper money is adapted.

It established a bank at which enterprising men, able to furnish good security in property, could raise money at fair interest for further ventures. Besides, it supported the Goverment for our frugal forefathers without expense or taxation; and this made the measure none the less popular, we may be sure, with an Assembly that, under the property qualifications of the day, was composed entirely of large free- holders.

But this last fact introduced a curious and new ele- ment of strength into the ever-recurring contest about supplies. In course of years, as the principal of the loan was called in, and the bills canceled according to law, the interest of the balance became insufficient for the support of Government, while the Colony was distressed by the forced reduction of the loans. Money became searce, and new taxation became unpopular just when it became necessary. Lands fell in value, and the cry went up for a new issue of loans. But by this time the Lords of Trade had determined that no more acts for the issue of bills of credit should be passed. In some States, not in ours, they had fallen greatly in value, and the English merchants insisted that they would not be paid in depreciated paper. The Colonists were as obstinately determined that their sole banking and credit system should not be destroyed, and refused supplies by taxation unless a bill of credit act shoukl be passed at the same time. The resident Governors usually stood by the Colonists, but dared not disobey instructions, and the records are full of correspond- enee on the subject, and of petitions and arguments made before the English authorities by the agents of the Colonies. Colonial jealousy of the land-tax grew with that of the Lords of Trade to bills of credit. As early as 1729, Governor Montgomerie was ordered to foree a repeal in New York of the application of the interest on loans to the support of Government, and found it impossible.

In 1733, so much of the old issue in New Jersey had been called in that a new act for £40,000 more was passed, but though urged by the Governor was not approved for two years.

In 1737, Lewis Morris became Governor, coming into office after having had a bitter contest with the Assembly while Chief Justice, and determined to carry out the English instructions against further issue of bills of eredit. In 1744, an Act of Parliament passed prohibiting any such new issue in New Eng- land, where the currency had fallen most in value, and the analogy of this act was pleaded by the Crown in New Jersey. The result was sueb a bitter fight between the legislature and Governor Morris that all supplies were refused by the Assembly for four years.

It is obvious that this question was not one of mere taxation, although the battle was always over the supply bill, and the people were thus taught, year by year, to regard the question of taxation for the sup-

Faulty though the measure was, however, it was at first n benefit. It gave a sound circulating medium. | port of English government as a vital issue, The real

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, NEW JERSEY.

grievance was the sudden iron-bound reduction of the whole credit system of the Colony.

Had England remained at peace, a few years might possibly have settled the whole question. There would have been great distress, but the loans would have been paid, the bills canceled, taxes established for the support of Government, and then England might have imposed her excise without much ditti- culty. But it was not so to be. The struggle- against the French and Indians into which the Colonies were drawn, rendered necessary a new issue of currency, and reopened the whole question of support by taxes as against support by interest paid to the Govern- mental Bank. As early as 1746, expeditions were fitted out for the West Indies and Canada by use of the interest on outstanding loans, and of the bills kept for the exchange of torn currency. In the next year, Governor Belcher took office, and though he did his best to reconcile the conflicting parties, the Col- ony was as inflexible as ever for a new loan. The amount outstanding did not supply interest enough to support the Government. The Colonists refused to tax themselves for that support in addition to the expenses of the war, which amounted to £15,402.

A proclamation under instructions closing all iron mills aggravated the coutest. Only a small part of the expenses of the expedition was paid by England, and in 1754, the Colony stoutly refused all supplies unless they were allowed to loan £60,000.

The Lords of Trade consented on condition that the bills should not be made a legal tender, which the Assembly thought would make them useless. Legis- lation came to a dead lock. Petition after petition was sent, representing the care with which the State credit had been maintained. But with the outbreak of the French war in 1755-6, the contest ceased. The Colonists agreed that the bills should only be a legal tender to the State, and the tide of curreney was let loose, both for war expenses and for loans. In 1755- 7, £82,500 were issued ; by 1758, £155,151, and by the close of the war, £347,500.

sum for a community that has no foreign trade." From that day to the Centennial at Yorktown we have been proud of our militia and their fighting malities.

Our aid was especially needed in New York, our then weaker neighbor, with a population of only 55,- 000, scattered along the Hudson and Mohawk ; and it was generously given. But after the war the reac- tion came. Taxes were unsparingly imposed to the amount of £15,000 a year, to sink the bills of credit, and by 1766, the debt had been reduced to about £190,000.

Then the ever-recurring question came up, whether the people in time of distress should be forced to pay off the loans on their farms, or whether new bills should be lent out as before. In the last case the Government would be supported by interest. In the first, taxes only could be relied on, lands being depre- ciated in price to half their value by the calling in of mortgages.

If England had then assumed even her own share of the expenses of the war, the question of separation might not have arisen. Instead of that, she tried to tax the Colonies. In 1771, the question came up Hatly whether New Jersey would tax herself to sup- port regiments of the line here. She refused. The States united, and the Revolution came with its storms of war and woe.

Taxes and money are a dry subjeet. But it has been interesting to discover that the Revolutionary motto, "No taxation without representation," was not a new ery, but an old grievance kept alive from generation to generation by its curious alliance with the struggle as to State banking and loans and all the evils of money legislation. On the other hand, we can look back at that Utopia when men were not un- der the tyranny of municipal assessments and debts ; while we may congratulate ourselves in the possession of a sounder system of banking and credit, and that our politics, if less pure, are at least less bitterly earn- est than those of our forefathers.

The Colony went gallantly and enthusiastically into the war and the defence of her more exposed neighbors. Her population was largely Quaker in origin, but non-resistance was a dying doctrine and CHAPTER X. destined wholly to fade away in the sorrows of the Revolution. It is a digression pardonable to Stato ESSEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR. pride to refer to the records as to the mustering, equipment and good service of her troops, and es- Ix the great struggle in which the original thirteen colonies were engaged for their independence from British rule, tyranny and oppression, no section of the territory embraced, was more enthusiastic for freedom from the clutches of the British Lion, than was old Essex County, one of the original municipalities of the then sparsely settled commonwealth. Lying as it did between the two great cities of New York and Philadelphia, (for they were considered great then, but in a different sense from their present greatness), pecially to a letter of Governor Belcher reciting that from a population of 75,000, of all ages, including per- haps 15,000 men, reduced by the capture of Louis- burgh, or in Canada, of two detachments of 500 each, few of whom had returned from French prisons to their native soil, the t'olony had nevertheless sent out 1,000 more men by 1759, thoroughly clothed and equipped, and in a state of efficiency and supply that made them equal to 1,500 from other States, and had raised in two years £140,000 for the service, "a large | it was as it were, between the upper and the nether

ESSEX COUNTY IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR.

millstone, and its products made, to a certain extent, food for whichever army had possession, during that long and eventful struggle.

First Call for Troops,-In the following resolu- tions from the journal of Congress, October 9th, 1775, is the first call on New Jersey for Continental troops.1

" Readfeed, That It be recommended to the Convention of New Jersey. that they Immediately raise at the expense of the Continent, too battal- ions of eight companies each, and each company of sixty right privaten, otherred with one captain, one lieutenant, one comigo, four sergeants, audi four corponils. "

" That the privates be enlisted for one year, at the rate of five dollar por calendar mouth, Halde to be discharged at any timo on allowing them one month's pay extraordinary "

" That each of the privates be allowed, instead of a bounty, one folt hut, a jasir of yarn stockings, and a pair of shoes : the men to find their own arms."

" That the pay of the officers, for the present, he the same as that of the officers in the continental army , and in case the pay of the officers in the army is augmented, the pay of the officers in these battalions phall, in like manner, le angmented from the time of their engagement In the service."

A copy of the above resolutions was laid before the Provincial Congress of New Jersey, October 13th, 1775, with the following official letter of transmittal :

PHILADELPHIA, October 12, 1775.

GENTLEMEN-Some later intelligence, laid before l'ongross, seems to render it absolutely necessary, for the protection of our liberties und safety of our lives, to raise several new battalions, and therefore the Congress have come into the included resolutions, which I am ordered to transmit to you. The Congres have the Birmest confidence that, from your experienced zeal in the great cause, you will exert your utmunt endeavors to carry the mid resolutions into execution with all possible expedition.

" The congress have agreed to furnish the men with a hunting-shirt, not excemling the value of one dollar and one-third of a dollar, and a blanket, provided these can be procured ; but there are not to be made a part of the terms of enlistment.

"I am, gentlemen,

" Your must ob'd't, humble servant,

JOHN HANCOCK, President."

Forty-eight blanks for commissions were sent at the same time for Captains and subaltern officers of the New Jersey Battalions.

On the 26th of October, 1775, the Provincial Con- gress, then in session at Trenton, provided a form of enlistment as follows, and at the same time fixed the pay of officers and men, and appointed " Muster Masters."

"I -- , have this day voluntarily enlisted myself as a moblier in the American Continental Army for one year, unless ammer dia- charged ; and do Mind myself to conform in all instances to such rules an ) regulations as are or shall be established for the government of the suid army."

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History of Essex and Hudson counties, New Jersey, Vol. I, Part 7

Author: Shaw, William H Publication date: 1884 Publisher: [United States :] Number of Pages: 840

Author: Shaw, William H
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: [United States :]
Number of Pages: 840