The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

Messrs. PRINTERS,

The citizens of Philadelphia in a late address to Congress, having boasted how freely they had paid their taxes, and having appealed to the public returns for a proof thereof. A sensible writer in the Providence Gazette hath undertaken to expose them, and to show that even the small State of Rhode Island hath done more than they have, according to their proportions in the general assessment. The requisition for the year 1782, from the State of Pennsylvania, was 1,012,868 dollars, of which they paid only 107,088, or about one tenth: The requisition from the State of Rhode Island for the same year was 179,041 dollars, of which they paid 37,642 dollars, or about one fifth. And notwithstanding it hereby appears from the public returns, that they have paid double the sum in respect to their proportions; yet these citizens severely reflected upon the State of Rhode Island, for withholding the means of paying the public debts, and of doing injustice to the soldiery, alluding to their denying to invest Congress with a power of collecting an impost within that State, and which they have steadily adhered to, notwithstanding a committee from Congress attended on their legislature to urge them to a compliance, yet in vain. They are a happy people who know their own good; but they have not been idle or done like others, grant the impost upon conditions; they immediately laid an impost on all importations by land and by sea, and have thereby been able to do more than any State in the union. According to their proportion they have collected, and are collecting large sums from their late enemies, who have crowded upon them large quantities of goods, and such insensibly all their current cash, while their merchants are scarce able to support any trade, by their late losses and burdensome taxes, for the protection of their lives and fortunes: by this measure it is said they have already collected 12,000 dollars, which is to be remitted to their delegates at Congress, to see the same paid to the credit of their State's account: and have further supported the credit of the Financier's notes, by offering to purchase up any within their States.

Happy for us it would have been, if the legislature of this State had adopted the same measures, our treasury at this day would have had 10,000 dollars by such an impost: and that sum collected mostly from the subjects of Great Britain, who have imported many thousands sterling, and have drained this State of all its currency, and are permitted a free trade, while the subjects of this State are distressed by the taxes, for which their lands are sold by designing and avaricious collectors, who have laid the foundation for many lawsuits, in the course of which their injustice will be exposed to the world, and their names branded with infamy. Our farmers are distressed to pay these taxes, and the produce of their farms sold at so low a rate as scarcely to pay the labor of raising it.

Is this indulgence granted to British subjects, in return for their King's proclamation in July last? whereby the subjects of this State in particular, is deprived of its only profitable mode of remittance, by ships and their freight, from hence to the West-Indies and London.

A gentleman lately observed he desired to thank God, that not a State in the union could prevent a foreigner from trading amongst us: but in return, I desire to thank God, that every State in the union may lay such imposts as may amount to a prohibition. The British merchants are straining every nerve, to rival the French merchants in their trade to America, and have already sent at least a million sterling in their manufactures: Thus we are enriching a nation who has involved us in a civil and unnatural war, and loaded us with an enormous debt, under which many of them believe we cannot long support ourselves; but if we are so indebted, it is to a generous Prince and his subjects, who will strive to lighten, rather than increase them. If the subjects of Britain are admitted into our trading towns and cities, and suffered to remain with us, and many of them to insult our poverty, and go free of all taxation, while the subjects of these States are denied the same privileges in the West-Indies, we discover a want of fortitude or pusillanimity of spirit, or a spirit of retaliation which disgraces AMERICA.

I remember that Congress in a solemn address to the inhabitants of these States, emphatically express themselves, that foreigners and children yet unborn, would help us in the diminution of our national debt: But no measures are yet taken to oblige them. If a general impost under the direction of Congress cannot be obtained (as it seems the States of Rhode Island and Connecticut have wholly refused, and of course none will be laid) yet every State ought to lay them to be paid in for the discharge of the interest, and part of the principal of the national debt.

There has been such glaring abuses in many departments during the late war, and the public monies so lavishly delivered out, that the people grow jealous of every power, and seem determined to keep their purse strings more under their own particular direction and inspection; and if such imposts are immediately laid, we may yet be, what our enemies wish never to see us: a HAPPY PEOPLE.