So small were the financial operations during the earlier years that the general treasurer "returned his accompte into the courte for the year 1649, that he (had) received nothing as Treasurer and therefore have nothing in his hande,"[25] and Gregory Dexter, town clerk of Providence, could write to Sir Henry Vane "Sir we have not known what an excise means. We have almost forgotten what tythes are; yea, or taxes, either to church or commonweale."[26]. In fact for many years fines and forfeitures seem to have been the chief reliance for defraying ordinary general expenses and they continued to form a principal element of the receipts until the end of the century.[27]. Taxation however could not be entirely avoided. It was necessary to place the colony in a position capable of defence and in 1650 each town was ordered to have in its magazine a certain quantity of arms and ammunition, the amount assigned to each town to be equally laid upon the inhabitants of the council thereof "according to each man's strength and estate."[28] Taxes were also levied to pay for powder and shot sent, over from England.[29] Prisons were necessary and in 1655 the towns were ordered to build two prisons, two cages, and two pairs of stocks, one of each on the mainland and one on the island at a total cost of £135.[30] Later court houses and a state house were required, but on the whole taxation to meet ordinary expenses remained almost ludicrously small until long after Rhode Island had become a state. The exercise of the taxing power was reserved for special occasions. The most important of these was war; next came the support of an agent in England. Wars which required the employment of a paid soldiery did not begin until the end of the Seventeenth century; agents in England to look after colonial interests were a necessity from the very beginning of the colonies and lasted until the colonies became states. Particularly was this the case in Rhode Island, small in population and territory, its jurisdiction attacked on every side by the claims of more powerful neighbors,[31] with a charter containing grants of such unusual freedom that it was a constant target for those opposed to colonial self-government. One of the acts of the first general assembly under the Patent in 1647 was to assess upon the towns a tax of £100 to pay Roger Williams for his exertions in procuring that document more than three years before.[32] Williams in company with John Clarke again went to England to secure the repeal of Coddington's commission. The former returned on the accomplishment of his mission but Clarke remained and cared for the interests of the colony, and it was in connection with his efforts to secure the charter of 1663 that taxation on any considerable scale began. The following table will show the taxes levied from 1662 to the fall of the Andros government in the spring of 1689. Those taxes marked with a star were levied under the Andros régime.