[40]. For delinquency in payment see notes 38 and 41.
[41]. The colony account book shows the receipt of but £59, 13s. 10d. up to September, 1686, from the deficiency of £108, 6s. 10d. (Note 38) and the present tax. More may have been received for the accounts were left in an irregular manner, and the custom of offsetting debts due from the colony against rates may have prevented some payments being recorded at all. On the other hand it was in the summer of 1686, that the colony forfeited its charter so that it would not be strange if the taxes due were not collected.
[42]. I have been able to find no trace of this tax in the colony records, but such a tax seems to have been ordered by Andros throughout his whole jurisdiction, and it is mentioned as levied in Staples Annals of Providence, p. 177.
[43]. This tax as assessed in Providence amounted to £37 12s. 3d. of which £14 was poll money, giving the number of polls assessed as 178. The number of separate property assessments was 144. In the rate of £120 levied in the same year Providence paid one sixth of the whole. Using this as a basis of calculation the penny in the pound and poll tax would have amounted to about £225. The other penny in the pound taxes do not seem to have yielded quite so much. The three perhaps yielded about £600.
[44]. R.I. Col. Recs. I, 104-5. Herdsmen or lightermen detained on their necessary employment were subject to a fine of only 2s. 6d., and farmers might leave one man at home subject to the same penalty.
[45]. R.I. Col. Recs. I, 153: Provision was also made for archery. Every person above seven years of age was required to be supplied with bow and arrows and to practice shooting. (Ibid 186)
[46]. R.I. Col. Recs. I, 372: In 1673, those also were exempted who could not fight without violating their conscience. A concession to the Quakers, but the abuse to which the law was subject led to its repeal a few years later.
[47]. The arms required by the act of 1647, were "a musket, one pound of powder, twenty bullets, and two fadom of match, with sword, rest bandaliers all completely furnished." By act of 1665, in addition to his arms each man must be furnished with two pounds of powder and four pounds of lead or shot. (R.I. Col. Recs. II, 117). Under the law of 1677 the requirements were one gun or musket, one pound of powder, and thirty bullets (Ibid 570). The act of 1665, speaks of the burden on the poorer citizens in keeping their arms in repair, and ammunition on hand, and provides that to meet these expenses nine shillings a year in current pay shall be paid to each enlisted soldier, the necessary amount to be levied by rate. No future law makes any mention of such payment and service was probably as a rule without recompense.
[48]. We have of course no accurate records of the number of the population at that time. From the data which we do have however it is probably safe to say that when the four towns came together in 1647, the colony contained less than one thousand inhabitants, and that the number gradually increased until at the end of the period, it amounted to between four and five thousand. The royal commissioners reported in 1665, that the "Colony hath its scattered townes upon Rhode Island, two upon the maine land, and four small villages" (R.I. Col. Recs. II, 129). By 1678 the towns had increased to nine, at which number they remained for many years. Certain parts of the colony, as the island and some of the country in the south and to the west of the bay (the Narragansett country) seem to have been very fertile. Say the commissioners above quoted "In this Province also is the best English grasse, and most sheepe, the ground very fruitfull, ewes bring ordinarily two lambs, corn yields eighty for one, and in some places, they have had corne sixe years together without manuring." The industry of the colony at this period was wholly agricultural and tended to stock and dairy farming rather than to the raising of grain. Indeed the colony seems on some occasions to have been dependent on its neighbors to supplement its own supply of the latter article. The colonists seem to have been comfortably off, without either great wealth or great poverty. In Providence estates were of small size (a few acres), life was on a very humble scale, the inhabitants enjoying only the real necessities. On the island estates were also small in size but there was more wealth, and the Narragansett country a few years later saw the growth of large stock farms and plantations, sometimes five, six, or even ten square miles in extent, managed by slave labor. Perhaps the condition of the colony as a whole during the period from 1647 to 1689, is best summed up in the words of Governor Ward in a letter to the Board of Trade many years later, "for, although we were not rich, yet poverty was a stranger among us, till the year 1710." An excellent picture of the early economic development of Providence can be found in Dorr's "Planting and Growth of Providence," published as No. 15 of the Rhode Island Hist. Tracts. A description of the "Narragansett Planters" is given by Mr. Edward Channing (Johns Hopkins University Studies, Series IV, No. III). Not only were the people of that time lacking in wealth according to the standard of today, but the organization of their economic life was entirely different from that we now know. Each family possessed a sufficiency of land, but produced only enough to meet the current needs of the household. There was no chance for saving, investment and accumulation; there was no adequate money system. All this would make a tax fall much more heavily than under our present conditions. Another circumstance that added to the burden was that taxes were not levied continuously, a small amount each year, but in considerable amounts, at intervals of several years. The colony suffered greatly at the time of Philips war. Warwick and a large part of Providence were destroyed, the inhabitants taking refuge on the island. All these considerations must be taken into account in the endeavor to form a judgment of the burden of taxation during the period.
[49]. In the letter from Roger Williams to the town clerk of Providence, already mentioned (note 32) he says that taxation in Rhode Island is far lighter than in any other colony. He also mentions that the charter cost about £1,000, while that of Connecticut cost £6,000. The letter itself is a plea for the more prompt payment of rates.