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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 143: PETITION OF NOVA SCOTIA.
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

PETITION OF NOVA SCOTIA.

At the opening of this session, a petition was presented to both houses from Nova Scotia, which proposed to grant to his majesty in perpetuity a duty of poundage, ad valorem, on all commodities imported into the colony, not being the produce of the British dominions in Europe or America, bay-salt only excepted, by which means the amount of the revenue would keep pace with the wealth of the province. Ministers conceived that this loyal petition would serve as an example to the other colonies, and therefore gave it their support. They suggested a duty of eight per cent.; but objections were drawn from the unproductiveness compared with the old duties, and the small chance of other colonies following the example of a district which had always occasioned an expense to government, and ministers themselves finally abandoned it: nothing was heard of the petition after it went into committee.