men in the kingdom plead poverty; and the French, or King James, or
the devil may come for them, if they can but conceal their estates
from the public notice, and get the assessors to tax them at an
under rate.

These are the men this commission would discover; and here they
should find men taxed at 500 pounds stock who are worth 20,000
pounds. Here they should find a certain rich man near Hackney rated
to-day in the tax-book at 1,000 pounds stock, and to-morrow offering
27,000 pounds for an estate.

Here they should find Sir J- C- perhaps taxed to the king at 5,000
pounds stock, perhaps not so much, whose cash no man can guess at;
and multitudes of instances I could give by name without wrong to
the gentlemen.

And, not to run on in particulars, I affirm that in the land-tax ten
certain gentlemen in London put together did not pay for half so
much personal estate, called stock, as the poorest of them is
reputed really to possess.

I do not inquire at whose door this fraud must lie; it is none of my
business.

I wish they would search into it whose power can punish it. But
this, with submission, I presume to say: The king is thereby
defrauded and horribly abused, the true intent and meaning of Acts
of Parliament evaded, the nation involved in debt by fatal
deficiencies and interests, fellow-subjects abused, and new
inventions for taxes occasioned.