Page:Notes on the State of Virginia (1853).djvu/203

Rh or thirty millions of pounds, our money. One per cent. on this, compared with any thing we ever yet paid, would be deemed a very heavy tax. Yet I think that those who manage well, and use reasonable economy, could pay one and a half per cent. and maintain their household comfortably in the mean time, without aliening any part of their principal, and that the people would submit to this willingly for the purpose of supporting their present contest. We may say, then, that we could raise, and ought to raise, from one million to one million and a half of dollars annually, that is from three hundred to four hundred and fifty thousand pounds, Virginia money.

Of our expenses it is equally difficult to give an exact state, and for the same reason. They are mostly stated in paper money, which varying continually, the Legislature endeavors at every session, by new corrections, to adapt the nominal sums to the value it is wished they should bear. I will state them, therefore, in real coin, at the point at which they endeavor to keep them: