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EXCHANGE, in law, is a mutual grant of equal interests, the one in consideration of the other; and upon such a convey ance, no livery of seisin, even of freehold, is necessary to perfect it: for each party stands in the place of the other, and occupies his right, and each of them hath already had corporal possession of his own land. But entry must be made on both sides; for if either party die before the entry, exchange is void for want of sufficient notoriety.

Both the estates exchanged should be equal. But not equal value, but only in the kind and manner of the estate.

EXCHANGE-re, is when the holder of a bill finds it not paid by the acceptor, then it becomes necessary to draw other bills upon the parties, which create exchange, and the exchange paid upon that transaction is, by the usage of merchants, chargeable upon the preceding parties to the bill, by way of re-exchange.

EXCHEQUER, from the French, eschequier, i. e. abacus tabula lusoria, is a court of law and equity, established by William the Conqueror, as a part of the aula regis, though regulated and reduced to its present state by Edw. I. and intended principally to order the revenue of the crown, and to recover the King's debts and duties. The court consists of two divisions, viz. the receipt of the exchequer, which manages the royal revenues; and the judicial, which is again subdivided into a court of equity, and a court of common law. The court of equity is held in the Exchequer, before the Lord Treasurer, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chief Baron, and three puisne Barons. The primary and original business of this court was, to call the King's debtors to account, by bill filed by the Attorney General, and to recover any lands, tenements, or hereditaments, goods, chattels, or other profits, or benefits, belonging to the crown; but now, by a fiction of law, suggesting that the party is a debtor of the King, and is less able to pay his debt, unless he has the aid of the court to recover of his own debtor, any person may be admitted to sue here. Ân appeal from the equity side of this court lies immediately to the House of Peers; but from the common law side, pursuant to 31 Edw. III. c. 12, a writ of error must first be brought into the court of exchequer chamber, whence appeal lies to the house of Lords. The exchequer, as a court of law, is the last of the courts.

In this court suits are generally brought for tythes, although the Court of Chancery also exercises considerable jurisdiction in that respect. The Exchequer is also divided into the court for judicial business; and the other, the receipt of the Exchequer, in which the accounts of the revenue are kept, and the money is received: in this branch of the Exchequer there are several officers; such as two chamberlains, the controller of the pipe, the clerk of the estreats, the foreign opposer, the auditors, the four tellers, the clerk of the pells, clerk of the nichils, &c. By stat. 23 Geo. III. c. 82, the offices of the two chamberlains, tally-cutter, usher, and second clerks to each teller, shall, after the death of the present officers, be abolished; and instead of tallies, indented cheque receipts are to be used: also after the death of the auditor, clerks of the pells, four tellers, and two chamberlains, their fees shall be abolished, and their salaries be fixed.

EXCHEQUER chamber. This court has no original jurisdiction, but is merely a court of appeal, to correct the errors of other jurisdictions, and consists of the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Treasurer, with the Justices of the King's Bench and Common Pleas. In imitation of this, a second court of Exchequer chamber was erected by 27 Eliz. c. 8, consisting of the Justices of the Common Pleas, and the Barons of the Exchequer, before whom writs of error may be brought to reverse judgments in certain suits, commenced originally in the court of King's Bench.

Into the Exchequer chamber are sometimes adjourned, from the other courts, such causes, as the judges, upon argument, find to be of great weight and difficulty, before any judgment is given upon them in the court.

EXCHEQUER, Chancellor of, is, in Great Britain, the officer to whom the arrangement of the financial concerns of the country is chiefly entrusted. He causes accounts to be annually laid before parliament of the produce of the taxes, with estimates of the several branches of public expenditure for the ensuing year; and if the amount of the estimated expenditure exceeds the probable produce of the revenue, he adjusts the extent and conditions of the loan with such persons as are willing to advance the same, and proposes to parliament the new taxes which become necessary for paying the interest on the money thus borrowed. On the foundation of the accounts and

estimates submitted to parliament, particular sums are voted for the several branches of the expenditure, and where the ways and means of raising the whole sum wanted have been determined, an act is passed, appropriating the specific sums to the various articles forming the supplies which have been granted. In order to provide against any unforeseen expences, it is usual to grant also a certain sum, unappropriated to any particular purpose, to be applied to any branch of the expenditure in which there may be occasion for it; this is called a vote of credit, and has increased in amount with the progress of the supplies; in the American war it was 1,000,0001. per annum, of late it has generally been 2,500,000l. Soon after the commencement of each session, an account is laid before the House of Commons, shewing how the money given for the service of the preceding year has been disposed of, and what part thereof remains unpaid. If the ways and means have fallen short of the sum they were expected to produce, the deficiency is made good as an article among the next year's supplies.

EXCHEQUER bills, bills or tickets issued by the Exchequer, payable out of the produce of a particular tax, or generally out of the supplies granted for the year, and receivable in all payments to the exchequer. The first bills of this kind were issued in 1697, as a more convenient kind of security than the tallies and orders for repayment then in use, and were partly intended to supply the want of money during the recoinage then undertaken. With this view, many of them were made out of small sums, as low as 101. and 57. each; and though they bore no interest when first issued, upon being re-issued, after having been paid into the Exchequer upon any of the taxes, they carried interest at 5d. a day per cent. equal to 71. 128. 1d. per cent. per annum. These bills being regularly discharged, other sums soon raised on similar securities, and their credit becomiug established, they have ever since been used for anticipating the produce of particular taxes, and have almost constantly formed the principal article of that part of the public debt called the unfunded debt. Of late years, the total amount of outstanding Exchequer bills (exclusive of those charged on specific branches of the revenue) has usually been about twelve millions. The interest payable on them has been at various rates, according to the current rate of interest at the time

they were issued; those at present (1808) in circulation bear interest at the rate of 34d. a day per cent. They are frequently made out for 1001. each, but those issued of late years have been chiefly for 10007. each, and they have sometimes been made for much larger sums; they are numbered arithmetically, and registered accordingly, for the purpose of paying them off in regular course, the time of which is notified by public advertisement.

The daily transactions between the Bank and the Exchequer are chiefly carried on by these bills, which are deposited by the Bank in the Exchequer, to the amount of the sums received by them on account of government; the bank notes and cash thus received by the Bank being retained by them, as the detail part of the money concerns of government is all transacted at the Bank. The instalments on loans are paid into the receipt of the Exchequer in Exchequer bills, which are received again by the Bank as cash, either for the amount of dividends due, or in repay. ment of advances.

When these bills sell at a considerable discount, or any other circumstance indicates that the quantity of them in circulation is too great, the usual expedient is to fund a part of them; that is, to convert them into a permanent debt, by offering the holders of them stock in lieu of their bills; this was done in October 1796, in November 1801, and again in March 1808. The total amount of Exchequer bills outstanding on the 5th of January 1807, including 3,000,0001. held by the Bank, pursuant to an agreement for the renewal of their charter, was 27,207,1007.

EXCHEQUER, black book of the, a book containing a description of the court of England in 1175, and its officers, with their ranks, wages, privileges, perquisites, &c. also the revenues of the crown, both in money and cattle.

EXCISE duties, inland taxes on commoditics of general consumption. This mode of taxation, having been always found very productive, has been adopted by all the European governments, and by some of them has been extended even to the necessaries of life; but, in general, the articles subjected to it have been such as are not absolutely essential to subsistence. Salt appears to have been the object of an excise duty at a very early period; in later times, oil, wine, tobacco, and various other con

sumable articles, have been burthened with duties of this description.

Excise duties were first established in England in 1643, when the long parliament laid a tax on beer and ale in all the counties within their power; and the king's parliament, then sitting at Oxford, imposed the like taxes on all within their power, by which means these new duties, called excise, became general. It is supposed that the plan was originally adopted, in consequence of its success in the neighbouring commonwealth of Holland. It was at first laid upon liquors only; and it was solemnly declared, that at the end of the war all excises should be abolished; but the contest continuing longer than was expected, this obnoxious mode of levying money was extended to bread, meat, salt, and many other articles. The excise on bread and meat was after wards repealed.

In the year 1660, two duties were imposed on English ale, amounting to 28. 6d. per barrel of strong, and 6d. per barrel of small beer; a duty of 2d. per gallon was also imposed on home-made spirits. These duties were farmed till the year 1684, when they were put under the management of commissioners. For a considerable time they yielded a revenue that was gradually increasing, and which amounted, in the year ending midsummer 1688, to 786,9157. 128. 7d. Soon after the revolution several temporary duties were imposed on beer and ale: and in 1694, the established duties were 4s. 9d per barrel on strong, and 18. 3d. per barrel on small beer; the aug. mentation of the revenue was not, how ever, proportionate to the increase of the duties, which was attributed by Dr. Davenant to improper management, but probably arose, in part at least, from the increased temptation to evade the duties.

Various additions to the original duties were made at subsequent periods, and the excise being extended to candles,soap, starch, hides, and other articles, it became one of the most productive branches of the public revenue; the gross produce, in the year 1732, being 2,964,6177. About this time Sir Robert Walpole, who was of opinion that taxes on consumable commodities, to which every citizen contributes in proportion to his consumption, and which being included in the price of the commodity, are insensibly paid, constituted the most elible mode of raising the revenue neces

VOL, V.

sary for the public service, formed a project for the gradual abolition, not only of the taxes on land, houses, and windows, but likewise the customs, by the substi tution of productive excise duties. He was influenced in the formation of this scheme by a knowledge of the gross and shameless frauds then daily practised in the collection of the customs; and which, from the very nature of those frauds, and the extreme facility of committing them, he had no hope to remedy: he thought, therefore, that to convert the greater part of the customs into duties of excise, would be equally advantageous to government and to the fair trader; and that the excise laws might be so ame liorated, that, notwithstanding the odium generally attached to them as oppressive and arbitrary, no just ground of com plaint should remain. With a view, therefore, to the execution of this plan, he obtained a revival of the salt duties, which had been repealed some years before; but upon proposing, in the following year, to transfer the duties on wine and tobacco to the excise, so much clamour was raised against the measure, that the minister, after some perseve rance, thought it prudent to relinquish this favourite project. The defeat of this scheme was celebrated by general rejoicings, as a deliverance from the greatest political danger had it succeeded, between four and five millions a year would have been raised under the excise system, in addition to the excise duties then subsisting: by the various duties which at different times have been since imposed, upwards of fifteen millions a year is now raised under the excise, in addition to the amount of this branch of the revenue at the above period.

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The several commodities now subject to excise duties are, ale and beer, cyder, perry, mead, British and foreign spirits, wine, vinegar, verjuice, malt, hops, salt, soap, starch, candles, coffee, tea, tobacco, and snuff, bricks and tiles, glass, hides and skins, paper, printed goods, and wire. The various rates of duty which had been imposed at different times were consolidated in the year 1787, when other regulations were also adopted, by which the produce of the revenue was augmented, and the expense of collect. ing it materially reduced, as appears from the rate per cent. which the expenses of management amounted to in the following years.

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dered it necessary to impose, have greatly increased the produce of the excise, and rendered it the most important branch of the public revenue. The duties which it comprehends are divided into the permanent consolidated duties, the temporary war taxes, and the annual duties; the latter consist of the old annual malt duty, and of an additional malt duty, which, with some duties on tobacco and snuff, and some custom duties, have, since the project for selling the land tax, been granted annually in lieu thereof.

Total gross produce of the Excise Duties in England, in the year ending the 5th of January, 1807.

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The total gross produce of the excise duties in Scotland, in the above year was, 1,824,394/. 08. 64d.; of which the sum of 1,445,000l. was paid into the exchequer during the year. The total gross produce of the excise duties in Ireland, for the same year, was 1,453,500l. Os. 2d.

The excise duties of England are under the management of nine commissioners, with salaries of 1200l. per annum each; and they are sworn to take no fee or reward but from the king only. From these commissioners there lies an appeal to five others, called commissioners of appeals. The commissioners of excise in Scotland are five in number, and have salaries of 6001. per annum each. The number of officers employed in collecting this branch of the revenue is very great. Besides the commissioners and their subordinate officers, as secretary, comptrollers, auditor, accomptants, registers, inspectors, and a great number of clerks in the different departments, there are 24 country examiners, 284 supervisors, 2750 gaugers, Previous to the apor excisemen, &c. pointment of any person to the office of guager, he must procure a certificate of his age, which must be between 21 and 30; he must understand the four first rules of arithmetic; be of the communion of the Church of England; and, if married, not have more than two children; be must nominate two persons to be his

securities: and the certificate containing these particulars, and written by himself, must be signed by the supervisor of the district where he lives, and accompanied with an affidavit that he has used no bribes for obtaining the office.

EXCISE, in law, is an inland imposition, sometimes paid upon the consumption of the commodity, or frequently upon the retail sale, which is the last stage previous to the consumption. For more easily levying the revenue of the excise, the kingdom of England and Wales is divided into about fifty collections, some of which are called by the names of particular counties, others by the names of great towns; where one county is divided into several collections, or where a collection comprehends the contiguous parts of several counties, every such collection is subdivided into several districts, within which there is a supervisor; and each district is again subdivided into out-rides and foot-walks, within each of which there is a guager or surveying officer.

The officers of excise are to be appointed, and may be dismissed, replaced, or altered by the commissioners, under their hands and seals; their salaries are allowed and established by the Treasury; and by 1 William and Mary, c. 24, s. 15, if it be proved by two witnesses, that any officer has demanded or taken any money, or other reward whatever, except of the

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