Note 622 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

Hume, and many other writers on the side of the Crown, assert the value of a subsidy to have fallen from £70,000, at which it had been under the Tudors, to £55,000, or a less sum. But though I will not assert a negative too boldly, I have no recollection of having found any good authority for this; and it is surely too improbable to be lightly credited. For admit that no change was made in each man's rate according to the increase of wealth and diminution of the value of money, the amount must at least have been equal to what it had been; and to suppose the contributors to have prevailed on the assessors to underrate them, is rather contrary to common fiscal usage. In one of Mede's letters, which of course I do not quote as decisive, it is said that the value of a subsidy was not above £80,000; and that the assessors were directed (this was in 1621) not to follow former books, but value every man's estate according to their knowledge, and not his own confession.