of hawest and the summoning the assessors and Collectors from
the distant parts of the County might be inconvenient to them upon
that account Your Committee confined themselves to Holborn and
Finsbury Divisions and the Liberty of Westminster, where by reason of
the great number of houses and consequently the inconsiderableness
of the assessment upon each house the aforementioned oppression was
carried on in a manner least likely to be discovered, and the rather
because upon view of the duplicates it did not appear to them to prevail
so munch in the County parishes. The assessors generally alledged for
excuse that what they had done was to satiffy the charges of Collection
the makeing of the Books and such like and that many persons refused
to pay their assessment by reason whereof little more could be raised
than sufficient to satisfy the Treasurer the legall Sum, tho' upon view
of the Books it appears to your Committee that in most of the parishes
the assessment has been almost punctually raised. The assessors of St.
Anns Westm did acknowledge their fault and consess that they did it
knowingly to give an opportunity to the Collector to raisea Sum of
money for the support of himself and a numerous Family which
must otherwise have been burthen Some to their parish and to the end
of their assessment have deceitfully added the words, Sum Total
£11:19s:5d: Tho' they mention in the title that £7 only was charged upon
their parish But upon casting up the Book by some of your
Committee it appears to your Committee to amount to £17 and
upwards, It appears that all the Collectors who are for the most
part the Beadles either in their ownright or as Deputys did this
with their Eyes open, in regard none of them have paid more to the
Treasucer'suse than the sum charged upon their parish by the legall
rate, and they acknowledged that the money by them raised over and
above what they had paid to the use of the Treasurer was still in their
hands. Your Committee had it in their intention to have caused all
the Originall Collecting Books to have been cast up to see what has been
actually collected and consequently what remains in the Collectors
hands, but that has not been yet done for want of an opportunity of
seeing those Books which they consest they had destroyed. In the
course of this enquiry it appeared that several parishes to prevent
any appression upon them had ordered the just sum and no more to be
paid out of the Land tax But this precaution appears also to have been
abused for upon view of the receipts in some of those parishes Your
Committee entertained a suspicion that they had paid their