"The General Account of His Majesty's Quit Rents and Fines for the Province of New York"

[NEW YORK PROVINCE QUIT RENTS MANUSCRIPTS]. COLDEN, Cadwallader (1688-1776), Lt. Governor of New York: ELLIOT, Andrew, Receiver General; General BANYER, Goldsbrow, Deputy Auditor. 3 Manuscript ADs s, each on a bifolium, being "The General Account of His Majesty's Quit Rents and Fines for the Province of New York Stated by Andrew Elliot, Esqr. Receiver General Constituted thereto by His Majesty's Letters Patent, Commencing the 29th day of Septmr: 1767, & Ending the 29th day of Septr: 1768 [AND: 1768-1769 & 1771-1773]. Large folio, variously, 17 x 23 1/2", 18 x 23 1/2", and 19 x 23 1/2". Signed and witnessed by Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden, Andrew Elliott (1728-1797), future Loyalist and acting colonial governor of New York in 1783, and Goldsbrow Banyer (1724-1815), career colonial official, Deputy Auditor General of the Province of New York, future incorporator of the Bank of Albany, and witnessed by all three. New York, 1769, 1770 and 1774.

Manuscript tax and payment records apparently "lost" since 1918. Important financial records covering four years of colonial New York quitrents and fines. Quitrents began as feudal obligations, and gave way to state taxation, being a perpetual rent payable to the Crown. They were easy to impose on large holdings in the Middle Colonies, although compliance was often difficult to enforce. Salaries covered by quitrents included those for the secretary of Indian affairs, the auditor general, a deputy auditor, provincail secretary, a surveyor, all enumerated here, one listing payments to the well-known New York printers Hugh Gaine and James Rivington "for Advertizements issued by The Receiver-General directed to the Proprietors of Lands in this Province...," and to Gaine for "New Books." Alvin Rabushka, Taxation in Colonial America (2008), p. 889, quotes Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Quit-Rent System in the American Colonies (1918): "The quitrent accounts for New York were practically complete until a fire in 1911 rendered them illegible. It is thus impossible to present a list of annual receipts between 1766 and 1775." These manuscripts were offered at auction in 1913 and purchased by Joseph Sabin, the bookseller, but since his death they were either lost of mislaid "and cannot now be found (1918)."-p. 178n5. That void is now partially filled as these are part of those lost records of quitrents and fines for the province covering the counties of New York, Westchester, Dutchess, Albany, Ulster, Orange, Richmond, Kings, Queens and Suffolk. Two documents repaired at folds, with no loss. A full description is available to those interested. ABB-VBF