Note 644 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
An act allowing one half of the taxes to be paid in tobacco, hemp, flour, or deerskins, and suspending distress for taxes until January, 1784. (Hening, xi, 289.) The scarcity of specie was so great and the people so poor that the collection of taxes was extremely difficult. In 1782 the partial payment of taxes in commutables—tobacco, hemp, flour, or deerskins—was introduced. This occasioned such loss to the treasury that in May, 1783, the Commutable Acts were repealed; but within five months the Legislature reversed itself again and passed the Commutable Bill which so disgusted Marshall.