Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (3rd ed, 1768, vol I).djvu/324

 308 And in this committee every member (though it is looked upon as the peculiar province of the chancellor of the exchequer) may propoe uch cheme of taxation as he thinks will be leat detrimental to the public. The reolutions of this committee (when approved by a vote of the houe) are in general eteemed to be (as it were) final and concluive. For, though the upply cannot be actually raied upon the ubject till directed by an act of the whole parliament, yet no monied man will cruple to advance to the government any quantity of ready cah, on the credit of a bare vote of the houe of commons, though no law be yet paed to etablih it.

taxes, which are raied upon the ubject, are either annual or perpetual. The uual annual taxes are thoe upon land and malt.

I. land tax, in it's modern hape, has upereded all the former methods of rating either property, or perons in repect of their property, whether by tenths or fifteenths, ubidies on land, hydages, cutages, or talliages; a hort explication of which will greatly ait us in undertanding our antient laws and hitory.

, and fifteenths, were temporary aids iuing out of peronal property, and granted to the king by parliament. They were formerly the real tenth or fifteenth part of all the moveables belonging to the ubject; when uch moveables, or peronal etates, were a very different and a much les coniderable thing than what they uually are at this day. Tenths are aid to have been firt granted under Henry the econd, who took advantage of the fahionable zeal for croiades to introduce this new taxation, in order to defray the expene of a pious expedition to Paletine, which he really or eemingly had projected againt Saladine emperor of the Saracens; whence it was originally denominated the Saladine tenth. But afterwards fifteenths were more uually granted than tenths. Originally the amount of thee taxes Rh