Dr. Davenant's opinion anent the salt and malt-taxes in England Opinion anent the salt and malt-taxes in England Davenant, Charles, 1656-1714. 1700 Approx. 7 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 3 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2007-10 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A37169 Wing D312A ESTC R15460 11926261 ocm 11926261 51018 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A37169) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 51018) Images scanned from microfilm: (Early English books, 1641-1700 ; 24:15) Dr. Davenant's opinion anent the salt and malt-taxes in England Opinion anent the salt and malt-taxes in England Davenant, Charles, 1656-1714. 4 p. s.n., [London : c 1700] Caption title. At head of title: Monday 23 of December 1700? Place and date of publication from Wing. Reproduction of original in Columbia University Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. Gap elements of known extent have been transformed into placeholder characters or elements to simplify the filling in of gaps by user contributors. 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Copies of the texts have been issued variously as SGML (TCP schema; ASCII text with mnemonic sdata character entities); displayable XML (TCP schema; characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or text strings within braces); or lossless XML (TEI P5, characters represented either as UTF-8 Unicode or TEI g elements). Keying and markup guidelines are available at the Text Creation Partnership web site . eng Salt -- Taxation -- England. Malt -- Taxation. Malt liquors -- Taxation. 2006-09 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2006-09 Aptara Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2006-10 Mona Logarbo Sampled and proofread 2006-10 Mona Logarbo Text and markup reviewed and edited 2007-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion [ Monday 23 of December 17●● . ] Dr. Davenant's OPINION Anent the Salt and Malt-Taxes IN ENGLAND . THE Doctor in his Essay , upon the probable Methods of making People Gainers in the Ballance of Trade , Printed Anno 1700 , after enumerating several Taxes , and giving his Opinion anent the dangerous Consequences of heavy Impositions on Trade , sayes page 95 , 96. and 97. That , during all the War , there has been levied here great Sums every Year , and many of the forementioned Funds are to continue so long , that it will be several years before our Annual Payments can be considerably diminished , and there is such a Difference between a Twentieth , and an Eighth or indeed a Twelth Part ( which yet we shall not come to in some time ) as must inevitably affect the Nation 's Trade and the whole Body of its People . When their was raised no more than about a Twentieth Part , there were great Sums of Money to circulate in Foreign Traffick , and to Imploy in enlarging our Home-manufactures , which two Fountains of our Wealth must be dry , when the Springs , which hitherto fed them , are diverted and let into another Channel . There is scarce any of these new Revnues which do not give Trade a desperate wound ; the Additional Duties on Beer , and Ale , and the Tax upon Malt , are apparently a Burden upon the Woollen Manufactures , affecting the Carder , Spinner , Weaver and the Dyer , who all of them must be raised in their Wages , when the Necessaries of Life are raised to them . The Consequences of which will be , that our Woollen Goods must come at a Heavy and Disadvantageous Price into the Foreign Mercats . There is no Man will pretend , that high Customs are not pernicious to our Commerce Abroad . A Nation is not Gainer in the general Ballance of Trade , by the Dealing of a few , who are able to Imploy in it great Stocks , such may make to themselves an immense Gain , but they go but a little toward Inriching the whole Publick , which seldom Thrives , but when in a manner the Universal People bend their Thoughts to this Sort of Business , when every one is ready with his small Stock and little Sum , to venture and rove about the World ; of these some prosper and others are undone : However in the way of Merchandise , Men who do not Thrive themselves , may yet contribute very much to make their Country Rich , which gets by the Dealings of all , and does not suffer by the unfortunate Conduct of here and there a Merchant . But when the Customs are high , all these Undertakers , who all along in England have made up the chief Bulk of our Trading Men , must hold their hands , tho in Skill , Industry , Intentive Parts , and Witt , they may exceed Merchants of more Wealth and of a higher Rank . Nor is it indeed practicable for Men of but a Moderate Fortune to deal at all , when more than triple that Sum is necessary to have ready now to pay the King , which formerly would have set up a Substantial Trader , and maintain him in sufficient Business . But of all the new Impositions , none are so dangerous to the very Being of Trade , nor so hurtful to all its Parts and Members , as the high Duties lately laid upon Salt. First , They affect the Common People in the whole Course of their Living , whose chief Nourishment is Bacon and other Salted Flesh , so that this Excise has an universal Influence upon all Manufactures whatsoever . But the general Prejudice it may bring to Navigation , is yet of a higher Consequence . Page 100 , he says , Reckoning long and short Voyages together , the principal Expense of fitting out a Trading Vessel , is Drink and Meat . The Excise and Duties upon Malt , without doubt , make Drink sufficiently Dear to the Fraughter . And the Duty upon Salt , makes Victualling a very heavie Burden upon him ; all which must end , in lessoning our Navigation from time to time , for undoubtedly Foreigners observing , how dear Freight is with us , will Trade in their own Ships as much as possible . In Barrelling up Beef and Pork , we heretofore made Use of St. Martines's , &c. or Oleron and English Salt mixed together ; and with these Materials the Flesh was best prepared , both for Wholsomeness and long Keeping , our own Salt without Mixture being Fiery , Corrosive , and very Scorbutick . As we are informed , the St. Martins and worser sort of French Salt , from 1676 to 1688 was delivered in London at about 2 l : 5sh : per Tun , and fourty Bushels to the Tun , and that from Oleron from 2 l : 10sh : to 2 l : 15 sh : per Tun. But now the very Duty for 40 Bushels of Oleron Salt amounts to 13 l : 6 sh : 8 d : beside the 25 per Cent ad valorem , of which formerly the Prime Cost came to but 2 l : 15 sh : at highest . The Duty likewise upon 40 Bushels of Lisbon Salt comes to 13 l : 6 sh . 8 d. of which the Prime Cost was formerly at highest but 3 l ▪ 10 sh : And as to our Newcastle and Limington Salt , which is now generally made use of in Salting Beef and Pork for Trading Vessels , the very Duty for 40 Bushels amounts to 6 l : 13 sh : 4 d : which before the War the Prime Cost came but to 3 l : at the dearest Mercat . In so much , that we are credibly informed , that a Merchant can Store himself in Ireland with Salt Beef and Pork ready Packed up , almost as cheap , as he can Buy the Salt in England . So that for long Voyages , the Merchant will either victual in Ireland , or salt his Beef and Pork on some Foreign Coast , as he sails along , where Provisions shall be cheap : which must be a great Damnage to the Landed Interest here : Or if he does not so , Victualling will be so Expensive to him , as to make Fraught much dearer than ought it to be in a Country that expects to thrive by Trade . The Consequence of all which will be , That the Body of our Merchants must ly under a general Discouragement , they will neglect looking after National Gain , which English Merchants have perhaps heretofore as much considered in their Dealings , as any Trading Men in the whole Commercial World. They will have an Eye to nothing , but their own temporary Profit , & suffer Strangers to go away with those Gains , which England was wont to make by Freight . From whence it will follow , That we must decay in our Stock of Shipping , and decrease every Year in the Brood of Sea-men ; and when this happens , we must no more pretend to such a Naval Strength , as hitherto has made us terrible to all our Neighbours .