“I am sure an income tax is enough to drive away all who have any substance. To leave one no choice! To make one pay, whether one will or not! I should not wonder to see every independent man in the kingdom contrive to get abroad with his money, somehow or other.” “I should. Every person of substance has not a brother Michael, with a doubtful wife and an ambiguous family; or a brother Henry, living in two small rooms, with a little Frenchwoman for a wife.” “’Tis not that, Henry. But, as I said, this way of taxing leaves one no choice——” “But of paying one’s due share of what ought to fall equally upon all. Now tell me, Jane, what choice has the man whose family obliges him to spend his whole income in commodities? What choice have Patience and her husband, for instance, of how much they shall pay to the state? It is not with them as it is with you, that you may contribute to the war or not, according as you choose to have wine, and servants, and a carriage. The necessaries that you and Morgan consume cannot cost you much, I should think,—cannot yield much to the state.” Jane cautiously replied that everything depended on what was meant by much and little. “Well; I mean that Patience’s eight children and three servants must consume much more butter, and fuel, and calicoes, and bread, and soap, and shoes, than you and Morgan.” This could not be denied. “What choice, then, is left to them? Under the system of taxing commodities, there is a choice left to those who least need it; while, if they do not choose to contribute, the poorer, who have no choice, must bear an increased burden. Oh, Jane! I could not be sorry to see you contributing as much from your wealth—money,—as the man who makes your shoes in his wealth—labour! He pays something to the state from every shilling that passes through his hands. Whether you pay something from every guinea you touch, I need not ask you. Has Peek told you of the rhyme that our labourers have at their tongues’ ends just now?” “Peek has not; but Michael told me of one he had heard several sing by the road-side,—something about how they divide their labour between one and another;—among all but themselves, they seem to think.” “It is the same:— ‘For the Debt till eight, For the Church till ten: To defend the State With guns and men, I must work till noon, so weary, O! Then a spell for the Judge, And two for the Crown; Sure they need not grudge, When the sun goes down, One hour for myself and my deary, O!’” While Marie was pitying the labourer, and wondering how far his statement was exaggerated, Jane was thinking aloud how willing she should be to work with head and hands for Church and State, the Army and the Law.