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

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      STAMPED PAPER.

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      Paper stamped with a certain mark by Government, and which in many countries must be used for all judicial acts, public deeds, and private contracts, in order to give them validity, is one of those numerous modes of taxation invented after the other means of raising money for the service of states, or rather of their rulers, became exhausted. It is not of great antiquity; for before the invention of our paper it would not have been a very productive source of finance. When parchment and other substances employed for writing on were dear, when greater simplicity of manners produced more honesty and more confidence among mankind, and when tallies supplied the place of notes, bonds, and receipts, writings of that kind were very little in use.

De Basville, however, in his Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de Languedoc, affirms that stamped paper was introduced so early as the year 537, by the emperor Justinian. This book, written by the author, intendant of that province in 1697, for the use of the duke of Burgundy, was printed, in octavo, at Marseilles in 1734, and not at Amsterdam, as announced in the title; but it was carefully suppressed by the Government, and on that account is very scarce even in France678. I have never seen it; but I know the author’s ideas respecting stamped paper, from an extract in Variétés Historiques, Physiques, et Littéraires, printed at Paris in the year 1752679. The author of this work supports the opinion of his countryman: but it is undoubtedly false; for the law quoted as a proof requires only that documents should be written on such paper as had marked at the top (which was called the protocoll) the name of the intendant of the finances, and the time when the paper was made; and this regulation was established merely with a view to prevent the forging and altering of acts or deeds680. A kind of stamped paper therefore was brought into use, though different from what we have at present, the principal intention of which is not to render writings more secure, but by imposing a certain duty on the stamps, proportioned to the importance of the purpose it is employed for, to make a considerable addition to the public revenue681. The stamps serve as a receipt to show that the tax has been paid; and, though many law papers must be stamped, that burthen has tended as little to prevent law-suits as the stamping of cards has to lessen gaming: though some think differently. In both too much is risked and too much expected for taxes to deter mankind from engaging in either.

If in this historical research we look only to the antiquity of stamping, we shall find that both the Greeks and the Romans had soldiers marked in that manner; and, if we may be allowed to bring together things so different, we might include under the like head those runaway slaves who were marked by being branded; but I allude here only to the stamped paper now in use, which was certainly invented in Holland, a country where every necessary of life is subjected to taxation. The States of the United Provinces having promised a reward to any one who should invent a new impost, that might at the same time bear light on the people and be productive to the government, some person proposed that of bezegelde brieven, or stamped paper, which was approved; and which Boxhorn, to whom we are indebted for this information, considers as a very proper tax. He is of opinion also that it might with great advantage be adopted in other countries682; and this was really the case soon after his death, which happened in 1653.

       Stamped paper was introduced in Holland on the 13th of August, 1624, by an ordinance which represented the necessity and great benefit of this new tax. Among other things advanced in its favour, it was said that it would tend to lessen law-suits, and, on that account, would soon recommend itself to neighbouring nations. What we are told therefore by the author of an extract in Variétés Historiques, before-quoted, that stamped paper began to be used in Holland and Spain so early as the year 1555, is certainly false. The Spaniards may, indeed, have been the first people who followed the example of the Dutch; for the author above mentioned asserts, 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

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