I heard a very warm debate between two professors, about the most commodious and effectual ways and means of raising money without grieving the subject. The first affirmed, the justest method would be to lay a certain tax upon vices and folly, and the sum fixed upon every man to be rated after the fairest manner by a jury of his neighbors. The second was of an opinion directly contrary: to tax those qualities of body and mind for which men chiefly value themselves, the rate to be more or less according to the degrees of excelling, the decision whereof should be left entirely to their own breast. The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favorites of the other sex, and the assessments according to the number and natures of the favors they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers. Wit, valor, and politeness were likewise proposed to be largely taxed, and collected in the same manner, by every person’s giving his own word for the quantum of what he possessed. But as to honor, justice, wisdom, and learning, they should not be taxed at all, because they are qualifications of so singular a kind, that no man will either allow them in his neighbor or value them in himself.
The women were proposed to be taxed according to their beauty and skill in dressing, wherein they had the same privilege with the men, to be determined by their own judgment. But constancy, chastity, good sense, and good nature, were not rated, because they would not bear the charge of collecting.
To keep senators in the interest of the crown, it was proposed that the members shall raffle for employments, every man first taking an oath, and giving security that he would vote for the court, whether he won or no, after which the losers had in their turn the liberty of raffling upon the next vacancy. Thus hope and expectation would be kept alive; none would complain of broken promises, but impute their disappointments wholly to fortune, whose shoulders are broader and stronger than those of a ministry.
The whole discourse was written with great acuteness, containing many observations both curious and useful for politicians, but as I conceived not altogether complete. This I ventured to tell the author, and offered if he pleased to supply him with some additions. He received my proposition with more compliance than is usual among writers, especially those of the projecting species, professing he would be glad to receive further information.
I told him that were I to live in a kingdom where the bulk of the people indulged in plots and conspiracies, I would take care to encourage the breed of discoverers, witnesses, informers, accusers, prosecutors, evidences, swearers, together with their several subservient and subaltern instruments, placing them all under the pay and the protection of ministers of state or other powerful persons who desire to raise their own characters as profound politicians. Men thus qualified and empowered might restore new vigor to a crazy administration; stifle or divert general discontents; fill their pockets with forfeitures, and advance or sink the opinion of public credit, as either shall best answer their private advantage. This might be done by first agreeing and settling among themselves what suspected persons shall be accused of a plot; then, effectual care being taken to secure all their letters and papers, and the criminal placed in secure custody, these papers might be delivered to a set of artists sufficiently dexterous to find out the mysterious meanings of words, syllables, and letters. They should be allowed to place what interpretation they please upon them, even if it is contrary to their true intent and meaning; for instance, they may, if they so fancy, interpret a sieve to signify a court lady; a lame dog, an invader; the plague, a standing army; a buzzard, a great statesman; the gout, a high priest; a broom, a revolution; a mouse-trap, an employment; a bottomless pit, a treasury; a sink, a court; a cap and bells, a favorite; a broken reed, a court of justice; an empty tun, a general; a running sore, an administration.
But should this method fail, recourse might be had to others more effectual, which learned men call acrostics and anagrams. First, might be found men of skill and penetration who can discern that all initial letters have political meanings. Thus N shall signify a plot, B a regiment of horse, L a fleet at sea. Or, secondly, by transposing the letters of the alphabet in any suspected paper, they can discover the deepest designs of a discontented party. So, for example, if I should say in a letter to a friend: “Our brother Tom has just got the measles,” a man of skill in this art would discover that the same letters which compose that sentence might be analyzed into the following words: Resist.—A Plot is brought home.—The Tower. And this is the anagrammatic method.
The professor made me great acknowledgments for communicating these observations, and promised to make honorable mention of me in his treatise.
I saw nothing in this country that could invite me to a longer continuance, and began to think of returning home to England.