By the distribution of taxes, and manner of levying them, the power is thrown into such hands as the spirit of the constitution requires it should be found in. Are they imposed in a monarchy where every man is taught to tremble at the King’s name, the great men will be made rich by his bounty, and the lower classes will be loaded and kept poor; that they may, on easier terms, be engaged to fill those armies which the Prince entertains to support his authority at home, and his influence abroad. Here independent people will always be looked upon with an evil eye, and considered as rivals to the Prince, who ought to be the only independent person in the state. In limited governments, where the sovereign has not the sole power of taxation, they will be laid on more equally, and less arbitrarily; providing the theory of them in general be well understood. Here every man must know _what_ he is to pay, and _when_; and the amount of the tax must bear a proportion, on one hand, to the exigencies of the state; and on the other, to the quantity of circulation which takes place upon the payment of it: that is, a man must not be made to pay all the state can demand of him for a year, upon his making a trifling, though most essential acquisition of a necessary article of subsistence. I think I have observed one remarkable difference in the point of view in levying taxes in countries where these two forms of government are established. Under the pure monarchy, the Prince seems jealous, as it were, of growing wealth, and therefore imposes taxes upon people, who are growing richer. Under the limited government they are calculated chiefly to affect those who are growing poorer. Thus the monarch imposes a tax upon industry; where every one is rated in proportion to the gain _he is supposed_ to make by his profession. The poll-tax and _taille_, are likewise proportioned to the _supposed_ opulence of every one liable to them. These, with others of the same nature, are calculated (as it is alledged) to establish an equality in the load supported by the subjects; by making the industrious, and money gatherers, contribute in proportion to their gains, although the capital stock from which these profits arise be concealed from the eyes of the public.