curities, and so perpetually continuing the application thereof, a sinking fund may be established winch will in a few years redeem a great proportion of the public debt, and enable government greatly to reduce the present amount of taxes;

11. Be it therefore enacted by the General Assembly, That there shall be a fund called and known by the name of the sinking fund; the surplus arising fron other funds not particularly appropriated, and such unappropriated money as may, from time time, be in the public treasury which shall be by law directed to the support of such fund, and such other occasional aids as the general assembly may direct shall constitute the said sinking fund. The said fund shall be conducted and managed and the money therein applied, agreeable to the purposes of this act, in such manner as the governor with the advice of council shall direct.

III. All military certificates, and other public securities which carry an annual interest, and which have been collected in payment of taxes, or which may hereafter be collected in payment of taxes, shall be placed in the sinking fund, and the governor with the advice aforesaid, shall, on behalf of the public, be entitled to warrants for the interest on such certificates now due, or hereafter to become due, and to transfer the said warrants, or to receive the money arising from the fund by law appropriated to the redemption thereof, in like manner as if the same were now held by the persons in whose favor the said securities originally issued.

IV. And whereas by an act passed at the last session of assembly an additional duty was imposed of six shillings per hogshead on tobacco exported, and the money arising therefrom appropriated to the payment of a requisition of congress, which requisition hath by a subsequent act of congress been repealed, and it therefore becomes necessary to make a new appropriation of the money arising from the said duty: Be it therefore enacted, That all the nett revenue which may arise from the said additional duty of six shillings per hogshead on tobacco shall be applied in aid of the sinking fund. The governor with advice of council is hereby authorised and required to direct the sale of the public tobacco which hath been received in payment of taxes, to be made either by public or private sale, as to him with the advice aforesaid may seem most for

the public benefit, and either for specie or such public securities as may be deemed most advantageous for the public, having at the same time due regard to the application of the money or public securities arising from the sale of such tobacco agreeable to the appropriations made to specific purposes; and if there shall be any surplus arising from the sales thereof after making good such appropriations the same shall be carried to the aid of the sinking fund.

V. All the money and other aids now appropriated to the sinking fund, or which may hereafter be appropriated to the same, shall be applied to the redemption of such public securities of this state, or of the United States, as may in the opinion of the executive be most for the public benefit, and will contribute in the greatest degree to the increase of the said fund, for which purpose they are hereby authorised and required to invest the money or warrants arising from the interest of the several securities so redeemed, in like manner, to the redemption of the like or other securities so as to render the said sinking fund productive in a compound ratio during its continuance.

VI. All the money in the said fund or which may hereafter be appropriated to the same, shall be applied in manner above mentioned to the redemption of the public securities, and no money shall ever be drawn from the same for any other purpose by construction of any general words in any act of the general assembly, nor by any authority except some act of assembly wherein the application of such money shall be expressly directed and the sinking fund specially named.

VII. The treasurer shall cause to be registered, in a book to be kept for that purpose, all the public securities and certificates which shall come into his office by virtue of this act. An account of which, as well as a fair state of the fund, shall be rendered annually to the general assembly.

VIII. So much of all and every act or acts as comes within the purview and meaning of this act is hereby sepealed.

CHAP. VI.

An act declaring tobacco receivable in payment of certain taxes for the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven.

[Passed December the 1st 1787.]

WHEREAS it is represented to this present Tobacco ter géneral assembly, that it will be a great relief and ceivable in ease to the citizens of this commonwealth to enable payment of them to discharge the taxes due for the year one thou- certain taxes. sand seven hundred and eighty seven under the act, intituled "An act to amend and reduce the several acts of assembly for ascertaining certain taxes and duties and for establishing a permanent revenue into one act," with notes for inspected tobacco; and that this ease may be given to the people without lessening the public revenue, by fixing an equitable price on the tobacco, having regard to the selling price thereof at each ware-house within this state:

I. Be it therefore enacted, That it shall be lawful for any person chargeable with the taxes aforesaid to discharge the same in inspectors receipts or notes for good merchantable crop tobacco not less than nine hundred and fifty pounds nett weight, and not inspected more than one year when offered in payment at the rates hereafter mentioned: At Page's in Hanover town, Byrd's, Shockoe, Rocket's, Rocky Ridge, Manchester, Warwick, and Osborne's at thirty shillings per hundred; at all the ware-houses in and about Petersburg on Appamattox, at twenty-nine shillings per hundred; at all the ware-houses on York and Mattapony rivers and their branches, from Newcastle to York town inclusive, at the College landing, Hampton, and Deacon's neck, and at all the warehouses from Falmouth to Roy's and Gibson's on Rappahannock inclusive, and at all the ware-houses from the falls of Potowmack to Aquia inclusive, at twenty-eight shillings per hundred; at all the warehouses on the different rivers, creeks, or bays within this commonwealth not herein enumerated at twenty six shillings per hundred, except the warehouses hereafter mentioned, at which

Sheriffs to

tobacco shall be received at the following rates, to wit, Rivanna at twenty eight shillings per hundred; and at Lynch's at twenty six shillings per hundred; at Crow's ferry and Cresap's at twenty two shillings per hundred; or in transfer receipts or notes for tobacco at the rate of one hundred and ten pounds for one hundred pounds of crop tobacco at any public inspection within this commonwealth. That all tobaccoes received under this act at any of the warehouses within the district commonly called and known by the name of the Kentuckey district; which tobacco shall be rated at twenty three shillings per hundred, shall be paid to James Speed, John Cowan, William Montgomery, senior, Richard Clough Anderson, Isaac Shelby, Gabriel Madison, and William Kennedy, gentlemen, who, or any four of them, are hereby appointed commissioners to receive the same to be by them sold for cash, or public securities, and the proceeds to be paid by the said commissioners into the public treasury.

II. And be it enacted, That when any sheriff or collector shall have failed to account with the said commissioners within the time prescribed by law for the payment of taxes into the public treasury, that then the supreme court of the said district shall be authorised, upon motion of the said commissioners, to grant judgment and issue execution against such collector and his securities, provided they shall have ten days previous notice threof.

III. And be it further enacted, That the sheriffs and make month collectors, except those of the district of Kentucky, ly returns, on shall give a receipt to each person from whom they oath of speci collect the taxes, specifying in what the said taxes were paid; and shall monthly make returns, on cath, to the courts of their respective counties, of their collection, county courts inserting in distinct columns of whom received, the a

fic axes collected, to clerks of

mount of the several articles paid, viz. specie, facilities, warrants, crop and transfer tobacco, with the marks. numbers, weights, and warehouses, and shall at the time of making such return make oath that he hath not directly or indirectly, sold, bartered or exchanged any article to or with the person or persons from whom he hath collected taxes, except what was necessarily given in change. And in case any sheriff or collector shall fail making such return, he shall forfeit for every failure, the sum of fifty pounds, to be recovered by mo

tion, on ten days previous notice being given, which the attorney for the commonwealth in the county where the failure shall be, is hereby required to make and prosecute, and the money so recovered shall be collected and transmitted by the coroner of the county, to the treasury to be applied to public purposes; and any sheriff being convicted of making a false return to the county court shall be liable to the same penalty, and shall moreover be forever thereafter disqualified from holding the office of sheriff or collector in this commonwealth. The clerks of the several courts are hereby required and directed to fix up fair copies of the sheriffs or collectors monthly returns in some conspicuous part of their respective court houses, for public inspection on the next court day after such returns are made; they shall also file a copy thereof and deliver another attested copy to the sheriff or collector, without which being first produced to the auditor of public accounts no sheriff or collector, or any person for him, shall be permitted to make any payment on account of his collection into the treasury. Any clerk neglecting to perform the several duties hereby required of him, shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty five pounds for every such neglect; to be recovered and applied in the same manner as the forfeitures inflicted by this act on delinquent sheriffs and collectors.

Duty of clerks.

CHAP. VII.

An act directing the mode of proceeding under certain executions.

[Passed the 4th of January, 1787.]

Execution

1. WHEREAS it is represented to the general assembly, that great injury has been sustained both by law amended. the debtors and creditors within this commonwealth, by the operation of the present laws concerning executions: For remedy whereof,

II. Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That so much of all and every act and acts of assembly as empowers the sheriffs or other officer levying an exeVOL. XII. H 3

Three months reple vy bonds a.

bolished.