Note 67 — Taxation in Rhode Island, 1636-1689.

It was a common thing to make the rate makers, whether appointed by the town or the assembly, responsible for the rate in case it was not made. The same is true for the constables and sergeants in case it was not collected. The reasons for the non-payment of taxes seem to have been political rather than economic. All through this period, particularly in the early part, the central government, as we have said, was weak and the colony was torn by dissensions. There does not seem to have been entire harmony between the main land and the island, and it was in the main land towns and outlying districts that the greatest difficulty was found in collecting taxes. Warwick protested strongly against paying her portion of the £600 tax to pay Clarke in 1664, (R.I. Col. Recs. II, 78) claiming that most of the time Clarke had been merely the agent of the island. If the tax must be levied, the town prayed that it might be levied on the Indians who had intruded on their lands and stolen their goods, or by "just fines and amersements, layd upon such in the Collony as have not only gone about, but allso have betrayed the Collony." This tax was not collected in Warwick for six or seven years. There were also internal dissensions in the towns themselves, particularly in Providence where the opposing parties seem to have been of nearly equal strength. In 1641, the inhabitants of Pawtuxet, an outlying district of Providence, submitted to Massachusetts jurisdiction and was not permanently reunited to Rhode Island until 1658, (Arnold I, 111). Until 1703 the conflicting claims in Narragansett country continued to interfere seriously with the exercise of jurisdiction in that country, sometime rendering it altogether impossible. Another cause which rendered collection difficult was the custom of offsetting debts due from the colony against rates. One of the provisions enacted at the same time with the sedition act was "neither shall any persons plea that the Collony is in his debt, be of any force or offset to his or their said rate on that pretence, untill the end be answered for which the rate is or shall be made." Similar acts were passed on many other occasions. Nevertheless offsetting rates against debts was customary and the practice is authorized by a general law of 1684. (R.I. Col. Recs. III, 165)