Finally found it! I have searched well over a dozen times for this, and finally found the correct keyword search that brought it up for me.
Darn.
Is is so hard to say “No. I am the King and you’re not allowed to do that.”
bkmk
Ping to prior discussions context - or, recently you found my last post interesting so you might have wanted where to find the original source.
Great job finding and posting this. Thank you for your efforts.
“...an increase upon the duties of slaves imported into our colony of Virginia will have the effect to prejudice and obstruct as well the commerce of this kingdom as the cultivation and improvement of the said colony;”
Breaking this down and translating, George III or whoever does the thinking for him, asserts:
1) Raising taxes on slaves will reduce demand and thus commerce (commerce in slaves is obvious; overall commerce as well?).
2) More slaves automatically equate to raising Virginia’s output and “improvement” (presumably more land clearance, farm production, buildings, roads).
Proposition 1 is obviously true.
Proposition 2 places the judgement for those “afar” above those “on the scene”. If more slave labor would result in more output and profits, presumably, VA’s slave-owning elite and governor would know that, and desire it. Did the Crown believe the planter elite was a) ignorant of their own interests, or b) had ulterior motives (e.g.: Depriving rising men the slave labor requisite to developing western lands, and thus becoming rivals for power within the colony?; Increasing the value of their existing slave inventory by limiting supply?). Or was the Crown’s interest merely in maintaining the profits of royal cronies in the slave trade? Are the identities of such traders and the value of their slave commerce in 1770 known? How much did they stand to lose?
Presumably the buyers bore the effect of higher taxes on imported slaves, but I’d be curious to know who literally paid the tax revenue (the seller?), when (were slaves valued and taxed at arrival or at sale?), and who received the revenue (the colonial government or the Crown’s tax collectors?). The Crown was hungry for taxes in this period.
Gotta love the royal “we” — if anything should have been rebelled against, it’s that one.
I have to teach it to students who don’t even know the expression “the royal we”. Those who have heard it have no clue what it actually means, much less the Declaration’s annulment of it.
Not sure that this order says what it has been purported to say !
Seems to be a dispute over WHO can raise taxes, and who can collect them.
947. No Additional Duties on Slaves in Virginia
Whereas at a general assembly begun and held in our city of Williamsburg in our colony and dominion of Virginia on the seventh day of November in the tenth year of our reign, two laws were framed and enacted by our governor, council, and House of Burgesses of our said colony and dominion of Virginia, entitled
An Act for Laying an Additional Duty upon Slaves Imported into This Colony, and the other
An Act for the Better Support of the Contingent Charges of Government,
by which said laws additional duties,
amounting to fifteen per cent were imposed upon every purchase of slaves imported or brought into that colony over and above a duty of ten per cent payable by former laws then in force;
and whereas it hath been represented to us that so considerable an increase upon the duties of slaves imported into our colony of Virginia will have the effect to prejudice and obstruct as well the commerce of this kingdom as the cultivation and improvement of the said colony;
whereupon we have thought fit to disallow the first mentioned of the laws, leaving the other, which is of short duration, to expire by its own limitation.
It is therefore our will and pleasure that you do not upon pain of our highest displeasure give your assent for the future,
without our royal permission first obtained,
to any law or laws by which the additional duty of five per cent upon slaves imported,
imposed by the last mentioned law,
shall be further continued
or to any laws whatever by which the duties of ten per cent upon slaves imported into our said colony,
payable by laws passed antecedent to the seventh day of November, 1769,
shall upon any pretense be increased
or by which the importation of slaves shall be in any respect prohibited or obstructed.
Virginia: (§939); Dec. 10, 1770.
bump
Damn, you are effing amazing ...
a treasure on FR for sure ...
thanks ...