proportion to his estate, and the Act put in execution, according to
the true intent and meaning of it, in order to which a commission of
assessment should be granted to twelve men, such as his Majesty
should be well satisfied of, who should go through the whole
kingdom, three in a body, and should make a new assessment of
personal estates, not to meddle with land.

To these assessors should all the old rates, parish books, poor
rates, and highway rates, also be delivered; and upon due inquiry to
be made into the manner of living, and reputed wealth of the people,
the stock or personal estate of every man should be assessed,
without connivance; and he who is reputed to be worth a thousand
pounds should be taxed at a thousand pounds, and so on; and he who
was an overgrown rich tradesman of twenty or thirty thousand pounds
estate should be taxed so, and plain English and plain dealing be
practised indifferently throughout the kingdom; tradesmen and landed
men should have neighbours' fare, as we call it, and a rich man
should not be passed by when a poor man pays.

We read of the inhabitants of Constantinople, that they suffered
their city to be lost for want of contributing in time for its
defence, and pleaded poverty to their generous emperor when he went
from house to house to persuade them; and yet when the Turks took
it, the prodigious immense wealth they found in it, made them wonder
at the sordid temper of the citizens.

England (with due exceptions to the Parliament, and the freedom
wherewith they have given to the public charge) is much like
Constantinople; we are involved in a dangerous, a chargeable, but
withal a most just and necessary war, and the richest and moneyed