A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins. Johann Beckmann

that he saw an act, executed by a notary at Brussels, in 1668, which was written on stamped paper.

This tax was introduced in the electorate of Saxony by an ordinance of the 22nd of March 1682; and into that of Brandenburg on the 15th of July, in the same year. Bartholdus however says, but without producing any proof683, that stamped paper was used before that period in Denmark, Florence, and Silesia. In Hanover it was first introduced, as I think, on the 20th of February, 1709.

      [The stamp-tax was first introduced into this country in the reign of William and Mary, in 1693 (5 W. & M. c. 21). This act imposes stamps upon grants from the crown, diplomas, contracts, probates of wills and letters of administration, and upon all writs, proceedings, and records in courts of law and equity; it does not however seem to impose stamps upon deeds, unless these are enrolled at Westminster or other courts of record. Two years afterwards, conveyances, deeds and leases, were subjected to the stamp duty, and by a series of acts in the succeeding reigns, every instrument recording a transaction between two individuals was subjected to a stamp duty before it could be used in a court of justice. These laws have been variously altered in later times, but it is beyond our province to trace them further.]

      FOOTNOTES

678 An account of this book may be found in Anecdotes secr. sur divers sujets de littérat. 1734, p. 573, and in the preface to Etat de la France, de M. de Boulainvilliers, fol. p. 12.

679 Inserted in the Encyclopédie, vol. xi. p. 862.

680 Novell. coll. iv. tit. 23. cap. 2. nov. 44.

681 Such is the idea of Stryk in Continuat. altera usus moderni pandectarum, lib. xxii. tit. 4. p. 856.

682 “The States of Holland having laid sufficiently heavy duties on merchandise of every kind, and these not being equal to the expenditure, which was daily increasing, began to think of imposing new ones. For that purpose they issued an edict, inviting the ingenious to turn their thoughts towards that subject, and offering a very ample reward to whoever should invent a new tax, that might be as little burdensome as possible, and yet productive to the republic. Some shrewd, deep-thinking person, at length devised one on stamped paper (called de impost van bezegelde brieven), to be paid for all paper impressed with the seal of the States. The inventor proposed, that it should be enacted by public authority, that no petitions from the states, or from the magistrates of any city or district, or any public bodies, should be received; that no documents should be admitted in courts of justice; that no receipts should be legal, and that no acts signed by notaries, secretaries, or other persons in office, and, in short, no contracts should be valid, except such as were written upon paper to which the seal of the States had been affixed, in the manner above-mentioned. It was proposed, also, that this paper should be sold by the clerks of the different towns and courts at the following rate; paper impressed with the great seal of the States for sixpence, and that with the less seal for twopence per sheet: for according to the importance of the business it was necessary that the great or less seal should be used. The States approved this plan, and it was immediately put in execution.”—Boxhornii Disquisitiones Politic. casus 59. In this collection there is also Boxhornii Reip. Bataviæ Brevis et Accurata Descriptio, in the eighth chapter of which the author gives the following account of the origin of stamped paper:—“A very ingenious method has lately been invented of raising large sums of money for the use of the republic. As there are many rich people who have entrusted a considerable share of their property to the public treasury, the interest of which they receive annually on giving receipts; as many law-suits are carried on which are generally entered into by the wealthy, and which cannot be brought to a conclusion until a variety of instruments, as they are called, have been executed on each side; and as, on account of the flourishing state of trade, many contracts are made, which, for the sake of security, must be mutually signed, the States thought proper to enact by a public edict, that no receipts, law-papers, contracts, or instruments of the like kind, should be legal or valid, unless written on paper impressed with the great or small seal of the States. A price was also fixed on the paper, to be paid by those who had occasion for it; so that a sheet which before could be purchased for a half-penny, was raised to several pence; and it is incredible how great a revenue these sheets bring to the public, by so many of them being used. The poor, however, and those of small fortune, feel little of this burden, as the rich principally are concerned in the transactions above-mentioned.”

683 Fr. Jac. Bartholdi Diss. de Charta Signata; resp. P. Kolhart, Franc. 1690, cap. 2, § 16, p. 36.