Note 45 — BOOK V. OF TAXES, AND OF THE PROPER APPLICATION OF THEIR AMOUNT.

Examples of these kinds of taxes were familiar in former times. Vassals were obliged to grind in their Lord’s mill, bake in his oven, press their wine in the public press of the territory, &c.

This was found very useful, in ages when alienation and sale were little known; but now they are considered as oppressive, and so I think they are, when compared with proportional taxes, which only take place upon the sale of the commodity: but still they are far preferable to many taxes of the cumulative kind.