The first point which we notice in these valuations is the prominent part played by the poll tax. On the basis of the estimate of 1762, and a poll tax of six pence per one thousand pounds, the poll tax supplied 20.7 per cent of all receipts from taxes. In 1769, the proportion was 22.2 per cent. This proportion increased of course with the growth of population, and by 1774, must have amounted to 24 per cent, but the diminution of the taxable population during the war brought it down again to 22 per cent in 1780. As to the proportions in which personal and real estate entered into the valuation, personal estate formed about one third of the total in 1762, and about one fourth in 1769, while, owing to the destruction of personal property during the war, it had sunk to about one-eighth in 1780. In all these estimates there is a tendency to favor personalty, as represented in the growing commercial interests, at the expense of the proprietors of land. In 1762, money and trading stock was valued at only one half of its true value, and in 1769, land was valued at twenty years rental which must certainly have been a high valuation. A comparison of the proportions in which the various towns contributed to the various taxes is instructive. The figures following refer to the estimate of 1769. The whole number of towns was twenty-eight. Eleven towns paid a larger proportion of the total property tax than of the total poll tax, showing they contained more than their proportionate share of wealth. As a whole they comprised the territory which borders on Narragansett Bay, and which had been long settled. Together they contained 40.32 per cent of the rateable polls, and 56.10 per cent of the property in the colony. The most important towns among them were Newport, which contained 12.44 per cent of the polls, and 15.6 per cent of the property; Providence which contained 5.06 per cent of the polls and 5.94 per cent of the property, and South Kingstown which contained 4.78 per cent of the polls and 9.3 per cent of the property. As a rule these were also the towns which contained the largest proportions of personal property. Of the property valued in Newport 47.4 per cent was personal, in Providence 51 per cent. Newport contained 30 per cent of all the personal property in the colony, Providence 12.4 per cent (i.e. the two commercial towns with 17.5 per cent of the polls contained 42.4 per cent of the personal property) and South Kingstown 6.2 per cent. Eleven towns out of the twenty-eight contained 77 per cent of the personalty. These same towns contained 49.5 per cent of the polls. The gain in valuation from £2,111,295-10-7 to £3,290,372-15, between 1769 and 1780-1783, was entirely on real estate, the personal property valuation remaining practically stationary, owing to the destruction caused by the war.