tor, and three receivers under him. It confifts of three divifions: The grand receipt, the plantation receipt, and the wine receipt. The duties upon imports from the plan tations, and upon wine, being productive branches of the revenue, and creating much trouble in the collection, have each a separate receiver. All the rest of the duties inwards are collected by the other; and this division is diftinguished by the name of the grand receipt.

"The master of a vetfel that imports goods, makes a report of his thip and cargo, as enjoined by various acts of parliament, on oath, before a deputy collector inwards, and fome one of the other principal officers, namely, the controller, the furveyor, or the furveyor general, and leaves the report with the collector. The merchant brings to fome officer in the long room at the custom house his bill of lading, which describes that part of the cargo that belongs to him. From this bill of lading, the officer makes out a warrant, which contains an entry of all thofe circumftances relative to the goods in the bill of lading, which are the foundation of the duties, and is figned by the merchant. Of this warrant he makes out fix extracts, called bills; one for each of the following officers; the collector, the clerk of the rates or computer, the controller, the furveyor, the furveyor general, and the examiner. Each of these bills contains the names of the ship and mafter, the port of lading, and thofe diftinguishing circumstances of the goods by which the duties are regulated. The warrant and fix bills are carried to the clerk of the rates; who computes the duties upon one of the bills, and enters upon that bill which is defigned for the receiver, as many fums of duties as there

2

are branches, caft up to a total, but not the titles of the feveral branches: Thefe computed fums are expreffed in numbers of twenty times the amount of the actual duties, according to a mode of computation made ufe of in the port of London, to avoid the errors that might arife in computing the fiactional parts of the feveral branches. Sometimes the warrant and bills are brought to the clerk of the rates, with the duties already computed and entered upon the warrant and upon one or two of the bills; and then he either examines the computation, or, if he fees reafon, trufts to the accuracy of it, and puts his initials upon one or both of the bills. The warrant and fix bills are then carried to the receiver; who, feeing upon one of the bills the initials of the clerk of the rates authenticating the computation, or finding upon the face of it, that the computation has been made by fome known officer, either receives the duties, or defires they may be paid to the receiver general; or, if they have been already paid, upon the receipt of the receiver general being produced, he enters upon the wars rant (unless entered before) in fi gures, the particular fums payable on each branch, with the total, omit ting the titles, aud figns his name to the total. If the warrant con tains the duties, he compares them with the entries on the bill, and figns the totai; which ignature implies that has received them: he enters upon the warrant the day of the month, and the number, and puts the fame number upon the fix bills he retains one of them, and delivers the other five, with the ware rant, to the clerk of the warrants; who procures to the warrant the fignature of the examiner, and of one other of the three principal officers above mentioned, and puts the

bills

bills into five boxes, for the computer, the controller, the furveyor, the furveyor general, and the cxaminer; cach of whom takes his bill from his own box. At the end of the day, the warrant being completely figned, the defeription of the goods upon it is compared, by the Clerk of the warrants, with the like defcription upon the bills of the computer, and of fome two of the officers: he enters the warant in his warrant book, and delivers it to the fand waiter, as the authority for pet mitting the goods to be landed; and, after the hip is cleared, it is depofited with the jerquer.

The mode of proceeding, rela tive to the receipt of thefe duties, is nearly the fame, to which ever of the three divifions they belong, except in the receipt of the wine duties.

"Wine, befides the duties pay able to the king, is fubject to two others, paid upon the import; the one by natives, called prifage; the other by ftrangers, called butlerage. Thefe duties are of very ancient date; and have been, as we apprehend, long ago granted away from the crown. Prifage was a right in the crown to take one ton where ten, and two where twenty tons or upwards were imported, by natives not exempted This duty, at firft taken in kind, has, time immemorial, been compounded for, by the payment in the port of London, of 2s, a ton, and at the our ports, of 10s, a ton, on all wine fo imported. Strangers, not being fubject to prifage, paid in lieu of it butlerage; which is 25. per ton on all wines imported by them, whether into the port of London, or at an out port. The prifage tons are expressly excepted, by the act of tonnage and poundage, from the duties impofed by that act; and fron, the coinage duty, by the

conftruction of the 18th of Charles the Second, chapter the fifth.

"The exemption from these three duties, the old fubfidy, the additional duty, and the coinage, enhances the value of the prifage tons above other tons, to the amount of thofe duties; and, therefore, the merchant pays to the grantée of the prifage duty that amount, in addition to the compofition of 28. per ton: and upon the fame ground he pays him likewife the two imports of 1779 and 1782, upon the pritage tons; for thofe acts, having impofed the 5 1. per cent. upon the amount of all the duties then pay able to the king, the three duties above men, tioned on the prifage tons, not being then payable to the king, have been confidered as exempt from thofe impofts; and the value of the prifage ton being increased above the other tons in proportion, the amount of those two impofts upon the prifage tons have been paid by the merchant, ever fince thofe acts, to the grantee of the prifage duty. This duty must be paid prior to any other : The collector must not receive the reft until he fees that prifage is paid; and, therefore, the warrant, and one bill, is first brought to the but ler, or prifage mafter. The war. rant contains thofe duties only payable to the king, not the prifage duties. The butler computes the duties, enters them upon the bill, cafts them to a total, and, if they are rightly computed, figns the warrant. This fignature being evidence to the collector of the payment of the prifage, and the deputy prifage maf ter being at this time alfo computer of the duties on wine, he relies upon the computation, receives the duties as entered upon the warrant, and figns it.

"Secondly, as to the export duties, or duties outwards. The cul

lector outwards is the officer who receives thefe duties.

"A fhip, defigned for a foreign voyage, is entered by the mafter or owner with the collector. The en try defcribes certain circumftances relative to the hip, required by acts of parliament. The merchant in tending to export British manufac tures, brings to a clerk in this office a warrant, describing the goods he defigns to put on board that thip. This warrant being reduced into the the useful form, is figned by the merchant, and left with the collec, tor. A copy of it is made out on parchment, called a cocket. The duties are computed, and their feve ral branches entered upon both the warrant and cocket. The collec tor compares them together, marks the cocket with the initials of his name, and, upon receiving the duties, figns his name under them upon the cocket as his receipt, Four copies are made of this cocket (but without the duties), and car. ried with it to the controller, the the furveyor, the furveyor general, and copying clerk outwards; each of whom keeps a copy, and adds his initials to the cocker. The con troller then puts to it the feal of office; and, being figned by the collector and controller, or fome one other of the principal officers, it is delivered to the merchant, as a warrant to the fearcher, to permit him to fhip the goods defcribed in it. "Thirdly, as to the duties coaftwife. Thefe arife principally from coals; which being of different kinds, the quantity is computed of fome by the weight or ton, of others by the measure or chaldron. This measure is likewife different at different places. The chaldron at the port of lading, whether Newcastle or Sunderland, is more than the chaldron at the port of London

(which is according to the Win chefter measure) in the proportion nearly of 21 to 11. The ship load, ed with coals is entered with the collector of the coal duties within four days after he has pafled Gravefend. The mafter produces to him a cocket, defcribing the quantity of coals on board the ship, if measured by the chaldron, according to the measure in ufe at the port of lading; and either pays into the hands of the receiver general, or depofits with the collector, a fum computed upon the quantity, fufficient to answer the duties; or otherwife, gives his bond, with one furety, to the collector, to pay the duties which fhall becoine due upon the quantity that the fworn meter fhall certify to have been delivered from the hip. In either cafe, of the depofit or bond, the duties must be difcharged within 16 working days after the entry, or otherwife the proprietor lofes the discount of two and one half per cent. allowed him upon the amount of the three old duties. A warrant is filled up from the cocket, the fum depofited entered upon it, and, being figned by the collector and controller, it is tranfmitted to the coal meter, as his authority for delivering the fhip. After the fhip is cleared, the coal meter certifies upon the back of this warrant the number of chaldrons delivered, according to the poole meafure, This certificate being brought to the collector, he com putes the duties upon the quantities certified, and enters the total of them in the margin of the certificate. The controller re-computes thefe duties, and either enters his own computation in the other mar gin of the certificate, or marks that of the collector, to fignify his agree ment with him. The collector then fettles the duties with the fac

tor

jects and other acts, impofing ad dition duties upon the objects of former acts, and affuming new mcafures of computation, have varied and multiplied the rules for finding out the amount of the duties payable upon the fame article; and a variety of articles of different kinds being frequently comprehended in one bill of lading, the compurer is obliged to have recourfe to a ftill greater variety of rules, before he can come at the amount of the duties payable upon the goods contained in one fingle bill of lading, "The fubject matter of the duties we have hitherto been deferib. ing are, either the rated goods, that is, thofe articles of commerce enumerated in the book of rates annexed to the act of tonnage and poundage; and in the additional book of rates eftablished by the act of the 11th of George the Firit, chapter the 7th, upon various goods omitted in the first book, or goods charged with a fpecific duty but there are other fpecies of goods fubject to customs, not included in either of thefe deferiptions, and called unrated goods. Thefe goods pay duties ad valorem, that is, the value is the measure of the duty; and that value is afcertained of fome by the oath of the importer, of others by the fale. Where the oath of the importer determines the value, that oath is taken upon the importation, before certain officers of the customs; and as a check upon the oath, and to prevent fraud, by the regulations annexed to the 11th of George the First, chapter the 7th, the officers are at liberty to take the goods from the importer at the value fworn to, paying him back the duties he has paid for them, and allowing him ten per cent. more than the value he has fworn to. These goods muft then be fold publicly; and the over plus of the fum produced by the

fale, above the value fworn to and the duties, is equally divided be tween the crown and the officers. If fold for lefs than the value fworn to, the crown fuftains the lofs.Where the value is afcertained by the fale, the duties are computed, either upon the grofs value, that is, the price the goods are fold at, or the reduced value, that is, the price they are fold at, after certain deductions. This measure of computation is grounded upon the act of the 2d and 3d of Anne, chapter the 9th, and relates to certain unrated goods, imported by the Eaft India company. The deductions directed by that act to be made from the price at the fale, and now in use, are, an allowance of 61 per cent. upon that fum to the com pany for their charges, and the amount of the net duties then pay able to the crown upon the remains der. The purchafer of these goods buys them free of duties: the company are to pay them; and the fum of duties they are to pay, depends upon the fum produced by the fale. This fum, therefore, contains the allowance, the duties, and the value to the company; and, being divided into thele three parts, gives the duties payable to the crown upon the reduced value.

The multiplicity and intricacy of the rules for finding out the du ties, render it neceffary to interpofe checks upon the computation. The collector is the officer charged with and refponfible for, the duties. It concerns him, therefore, as well as the public, that they fhould be accurately computed. The collector inwards is affifted, in the computation of the duties, by the clerk of the rates, called alfo the computer. One officer in this department, computes the duties on wine; the other, all the rest of the duties. The collector, previous to figning

his