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| Field name |
Value |
| Collection Reference Number
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GLC01794.44
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| From Archive Folder
|
Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay
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| Title
|
Catharine Macaulay to Mr. Wilson about English actions
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| Date
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ca. 1789
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| Author
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Graham, Catherine Macaulay (1731-1791)
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| Recipient
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Wilson, [?]
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| Document Type
|
Correspondence
|
| Content Description
|
Catharine Macaulay to Mr. Wilson about English actions.
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| Subjects
|
Taxes or Taxation Finance Economics Women's History Library Global History and Civics Corruption and Scandal
|
| People
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Graham, Catherine Macaulay (1731-1791) Wilson, Mr. (fl. 1789)
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| Theme
|
Arts & Literature; Women in American History; The American Revolution; Banking & Economics
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| Sub-collection
|
The Gilder Lehrman Collection, 1493-1859
|
| Additional Information
|
After the death of her husband George Macaulay in 1766, Catharine Macaulay married an Anglican minister William Graham. Letters from her female descendants are in GLC 1795. Notable in that collection are letters of her daughter, Catharine Sophia Macaulay [Gregorie], to Macaulay while the latter toured America and France. This collection of Lady Catharine's correspondence was broken-up for public sale in 1993. The Gilder Lehrman Collection has also acquired other letters written to her, including GLC 1784.01-1800.04. There are approximately 190 items between these accession numbers. GLC 1784-1793 and 1796-1800 are individual documents written by important American figures including John Adams, Ezra Stiles, John Dickinson, William Cooper, Richard Henry Lee, Mercy Otis Warren and the pseudonymous "Sophronia." Most of the documents relate to the events leading the Revolution. A few, notably the letters from Mercy Otis Warren and "Sophronia" concern the new Constitution and the French Revolution.
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| Copyright
|
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
|
| Module
|
Settlement, Commerce, Revolution and Reform: 1493-1859
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| Transcript
|
Show/hide Dear Sir I return you many thanks for affording me so much pleasing amusement in my solitude the Bishop of Landaffs instructions are excelent but not better than those I heard last Sunday I see no [struck: reasonable] [inserted: good] objection which can be made to the proposed plan for raising the taxes [struck: and] [inserted: I asked] the principle of simplifying the mode of collecting taxes must ever be highly approved by all [struck: those] [inserted: men] who well understand the interests of society and who are sincere well wishers to public happiness [struck: and] such a principle will ever be adopted by a free people and an honorable government but its utility will never recommend it to a Government carried on by corruption fraud and imposition an English Minister will have insuperable objections [struck: to it in the first place] [2] [inserted: for] it will deprive him of a great number of his dependants [struck: and in the second place and in the second place] it will let the people feel their burthens in the first instance and under taxation a more difficult bussiness [struck: it is] On these reasons [struck: that] a complicated and expensive mode of raising taxes has been adopted by all the crowned [inserted: Heads] in Europe for tho the subjects pay as much again by [struck: the present complicated] modes [struck: of raising taxes] [inserted: in use] [struck: ignorance] [struck: and inattention by] [inserted: inattentive ignorant] does not discriminate between the real price of the commodity and its advanced price by taxation and the setting up one interest against another makes every additional loss appear as a [struck: partial] burthen partially felt Had England always preserved a simple mode of taxation the many [inserted: illegible] wars she has waged would have been a let alone her debts would have been small and she would not have been on the Eve of sinking into the Slavery of a general Excise [3] I greatly respect the benevolent mind of the person who conceived the said plan but its adoption is a blessing that England never will experience I beg my best and if she will accept them my affect compliments to Mrs Wilson From [struck: I am] Sir Yr Most Obliged And Obedt Servt Cath: Macaulay Graham Tuesday Morn [docket:] [struck: To the P] 1789 To the Revd Mr Wilson on his sending me plan of a simple mode of taxation
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