THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

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upon him. The great lords seem to have beheld the degreeof prosperity and independency, which this inferior order ofmen had thus come to enjoy, with a malignant and contemp-tuous indignation, and willingly consented that the sovereignshould tax them. In some countries this tax was confHpd tothe lands which were held in property by an ignoble tenure;and, in this case, the taille was said to be real. The land-taxestablished by the late king of Sardinia , and the taille in theprovinces of Languedoc, Provence , Dauphine, and Brittany;in the generality of Montauban , and in the elections of Agenand Condom, as well as in some other districts of France , aretaxes upon lands held in property by an ignoble tenure. Inother countries the tax was laid upon the supposed profits ofall those who held in farm or lease lands belonging to otherpeople, whatever might be the tenure by which the proprie-tor held them ; and in this case the taille was said to be per-sonal. In the greater part of those provinces of France , whichare called the Countries of Elections, the taille is of this kind.The real taille, as it is imposed only upon a part of the landsof the country, is necessarily an unequal, but it is not. alwaysan arbitrary tax, though it is so upon some occasions. Thepersonal taille, as it is intended to be proportioned to theprofits of a certain class of people, which can only be guessedat, is necessarily both arbitrary and unequal.

In France the personal taille at present (1775) annuallyimposed upon the twenty generalities called the Countries ofElections, amounts to 40,107,230 livres, 10 sous.* The pro-portion in which this sum is assessed upon those differentprovinces, varies from year to year, according to the reportswhich are made to the king’s council concerning the good-ness or badness of the crops, as well as other circumstances,which may either increase or diminish their respective abili-ties to pay. Each generality is divided into a certain numberof elections, and the proportion in which the sum imposedupon the whole generality is divided among those differentelections, varies likewise from year to year, according to the*reports made to the council concerning their respective abili-ties. It seems impossible that the council, with the best in-tentions, can ever proportion with tolerable exactness, ei-ther of those two assessments to the real abilities of the pro-vince or district upon which they are respectively laid. Igno-rance and misinformation must always, more or less, mislead

* Metnoirca concemnnt lea Droit,, fcc. tome ii. p, 17,