Bills of Credit should pass in Payment, Satisfaction, and Discharge
of all
Contracts, after Publication thereof, within this Province, for Current
Money;
and that all or any of the Inhabitants of this Province might, and by
the same Act were enabled to, discharge all Levies, (the Forty per
Poll, and
all Tobacco directed by any Act of Assembly of this Province, to be levied
and applied to the Building and Repairing of any Church or Churches therein,
excepted) in the said Bills of Credit, or Gold or Silver; and that all
Bounties, Rewards, and Allowances, given and allowed by an Act of Assembly
of this Province; and also all Fines, Forfeitures and Penalties, settled
and established in Tobacco by any Law of this Province, should and
might be paid, satisfied, and discharged, in the said Bills of Credit,
or Gold
and Silver, rating Tobacco at Ten Shillings per Hundred, and in Proportion
for a lesser Quantity; with Proviso, that no Person should be obliged to
pay
the said Bills of Credit, Gold or Silver, in lieu of Tobacco; but that
every
such Person should be at Liberty to pay Tobacco for the said Levies and
Penalties,
as if the said Act had never been made; but that every Person who
should not tender o pay such Bills of Credit, or Gold or Silver, by
the
Tenth Day of April yearly, during the Continuance of that Act, should
be
obliged to pay all Levies in Tobacco, as if that Act had never been made.
II. And whereas
several
of the people of this Province, liable to pay the
Public and County Levies, have also Allowances made to them in the Public
or County Levies, by Laws now in Being, for certain Services to the
Country,
and most justly conclude, that the several Sheriffs should and ought
to
discount with them for so much Tobacco as they are allowed in their Hands,
or so much as will discharge that Part of their Levy as is by the said
Act to
be paid in Money, at the Rate of Ten Shillings per Hundred, be it before
or after the Tenth Day of April yearly; yet, so it is, that the
said Sheriffs,
or some of them, have insisted to pay, and have paid, to the said Inhabitants,
their whole Allowances aforesaid in Money, at the Rate of Ten Shillings
per Hundred, and at the same Time demanded from, and obliged the People
to pay, either the whole of the Tobacco they stand charged with for
Public
or County Levies, or such high and exorbitant Prices for such Tobacco,
as
they were pleased to put thereon: For the Remedy of which Evil,
III. Be it Enacted,
by
the Right Honourable the Lord Proprietary, by and
with the Advice and Consent of his Lordship's Governor, and the
Upper and
Lower Houses of Assembly, and the Authority of the same, That
from and after
the End of this present Session of ASsembly, when, and as often as any
of
the Inhabitants aforesaid shall have any Allowance or Allowances in the
Public
or County Levies, for any Sum or Sums of Current Money or Tobacco,
which may be paid and discharged in Money at the Rate aforesaid, and such
Inhabitants at the same Time are charged or chargeable with any Sum or
Sums of Tobacco, in such Levies, which by the afore-recited Act may be
payable in Money, before or by the Tenth Day of April yearly, the
several
and respective Sheriffs within this Province, shall, and are hereby obliged
and required to make and give unto such Inhabitants, and every of them,
a
Discount or Allowance for such Tobacco, so far forth as their respective
Allowance
or Allowances aforesaid, in the Public or County Levies shall come
to, either before or after the Tenth Day of April yearly; the before-recited
Act, or any other law, Usage, or Custom, to the contrary, notwithstanding.
IV. And forasmuch
as the Public and County Levies (except before excepted)
are now payable in Tobacco, or Money at the Rate of Ten Shillings
per Hundred, at the Election of the People who are to pay the same:
To
the End therefore, that the Public and County Creditors, or such persons
who have Allowances made to them in such Public or County Levies, may
be informed how much thereof hath been paid in Tobacco, and how much
in Money, and thereby know what Proportion or Share of such their respective |
CHAP.
VII.
Undue Practices
of Sheriffs.
Sheriffs shall
discount Public
and County
Levies, out
of Public or
County Allowances.
Sheriffs to
make out two
Lists upon
oath of Taxables,
setting
down the Tobacco
chargeable
on each, |
