UNCOMMON MASSACHUSETTS-BAY COLONY TAX WARRANT ISSUED BY HARRISON GRAY, ESQ., ON BEHALF OF KING GEORGE III
ONE OF THE MANY REPREHENSIBLE TAXES THAT LEAD AS CAUSES FOR THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
GRAY, HARRISON. (1711–1794) Wealthy colonial Massachusetts merchant; served as Treasurer and Receiver-General for the Province of Massachusetts Bay, [from 1753 until the beginning of the Revolution]. In 1774, Gray was forced to choose between patriotism and loyalism over the Massachusetts Government Act (which suspended the Massachusetts Provincial Charter). Gray chose to recognize the right of the King and Parliament to suspend, at will, the rights and liberties of Massachusetts Bay. In 1775, Gray published his loyalist views in a pamphlet titled ‘The Two Congresses Cut Up’. Ultimately, Gray’s property was confiscated and he was forced to flee Boston in 1776 and spent the rest of his life in London, England. Highly uncommon Partly-printed Document Signed, “H Gray” being a Tax warrant issued by Harrison Gray, Esq., on behalf of King George III. One full tall page folio, December 22, 1770. Issued to Joshua Hubbard Constable or collector of Kittery [Maine]. The document reads in part:
“BY Virtue of an Act of the Great and General court or Assembly of the said Province, begun and held at Harvard College in Cambridge upon Wednesday the Thirtieth of May, 1770, and continued by sundry Prorogations to the 26th of September following, entitled, An Act for superceeding and repealing the two last Paragraphs in an Act made and paired by the Great and General Court or Assembly of this Province at their Sessions begun and held at Boston on the Iast Wednesday in May, in the Ninth Year of His Majesties Reign, entitled an Act for supplying the Treasury with the Sum of Eighty-eight Thousand one Hundred and Fifty-eight Pounds, to be thence issued for discharging the Public Debts, and drawing the fame into the Treasury again And for apportioning and assessing a Tax of Twenty-five Thousand Pound ; and alto for apportioning and assessing a Tax of Two Thousand Five Hundred and Fifty-nine Pounds Seventeen Shillings, paid the Representatives for their Travel, Service and Attendance in the Great and General Court in the Year One Thousand Severe Hundred and Sixty-Nine, &c.
THESE are in His Majesty’s Name to will and require you to collect all and every the Sums of Money mentioned in the List or Lifts of the Tax or Assessment of your Town, District, Parish or other Place, made by the Assessors or Selectmen of the said Town, District, Parrish or other Place, and committed to you to collect: Amounting in the Whole to the Sum of Sixty-Six pounds Nineteen Shillings and nine pence…”
These documents are highly uncommon testaments to the taxation issues of the colonies, and when combined with the fact it was issued to a Kittery Maine Constable [before the two states were officially split] just makes it all that much better. Condition is very fine.
$950.00
