The following proposal seems to me to be more practicable, viz. . . to establish quit-rents on all past grants. . . The quit-rents would in this case be sufficient to support the government, and if they were applied to that purpose I believe would give a general satisfaction; because it would be as equal a taxation as could well be contrived, and the taxes would not, as they do now, fall only upon the improvements and the industry of the people.
— REPORT OF CADWALADER GOLDEN, Surveyor-General
and afterward Lieutenant-Governor of the Province of New York (1732),
Documentary History of New York, Vol. I., p. 386.
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