An Essay Upon Projects

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Defoe Daniel. An Essay Upon Projects

INTRODUCTION

AUTHOR’S PREFACE

AUTHOR’S INTRODUCTION

The History of Projects

OF PROJECTORS

OF BANKS

OF THE HIGHWAYS

OF ASSURANCES

OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES

THE PROPOSAL IS FOR A PENSION OFFICE

OF WAGERING

OF FOOLS

A CHARITY-LOTTERY

OF BANKRUPTS

OF ACADEMIES

OF A COURT MERCHANT

OF SEAMEN

THE CONCLUSION

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One of the Commission’s for Managing His majesty’s Duties on Glass, &c.

This preface comes directed to you, not as commissioner, &c., under whom I have the honour to serve his Majesty, nor as a friend, though I have great obligations of that sort also, but as the most proper judge of the subjects treated of, and more capable than the greatest part of mankind to distinguish and understand them.

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Should the king appoint a survey over the assessors, and indict all those who were found faulty, allowing a reward to any discoverer of an assessment made lower than the literal sense of the Act implies, what a register of frauds and connivances would be found out!

In a general tax, if any should be excused, it should be the poor, who are not able to pay, or at least are pinched in the necessary parts of life by paying. And yet here a poor labourer, who works for twelve pence or eighteen pence a day, does not drink a pot of beer but pays the king a tenth part for excise; and really pays more to the king’s taxes in a year than a country shopkeeper, who is alderman of the town, worth perhaps two or three thousand pounds, brews his own beer, pays no excise, and in the land-tax is rated it may be at £100, and pays £1 4s. per annum, but ought, if the Act were put in due execution, to pay £36 per annum to the king.

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