To the chief objection that was offered, no answer has yet been made, nor has the assembly been informed how the innkeeper shall be able to discover when he has paid the tax which this law lays upon him.  This is, indeed, a tax of a very particular kind, a tax without limits, and to be levied at the discretion of him for whose benefit it is paid.  Soldiers quartered upon these terms, are more properly raising contributions in an enemy’s country, than receiving wages in their own.

Is it intended, by this motion, that the innkeepers shall judge what ought to be allowed the soldier for his money?  I do not see, then, that any alteration is proposed in the present condition of our army; for who has ever refused to sell them food for their money at the common price, or what necessity is there for a law to enforce a practice equally to the advantage of all parties?  If it be proposed that the soldier shall judge for himself, that he shall set what value he shall think fit on his own money, and that he shall be at once the interpreter and executioner of this new law, the condition of the innkeeper will then be such as no slave in the mines of America can envy, and such as he will gladly quit for better treatment under the most arbitrary and oppressive government.

Nor will the insolence of the soldier, thus invested with unlimited authority, thus entitled to implicit obedience, and exalted above the rest of mankind, by seeing his claim only bounded by his own moderation, be confined to his unhappy landlord.  Every guest will become subject to his intrusion, and the passenger must be content to want his dinner, whenever the lord of the inn shall like it better than his own.

That these apprehensions, sir, are not groundless, may be proved from the conduct of these men, even when the law was not so favourable to their designs; some of them have already claimed the sole dominion of the houses in which they have been quartered, and insulted persons of very high rank, and whom our ancient laws had intended to set above the insults of a turbulent soldier.  They have seen the provisions which they had ordered taken away by force, partly, perhaps, to please the appetite of the invader, and partly to gratify his insolence, and give him an opportunity of boasting among his comrades, how successfully he blustered.

If it be necessary, sir, to insert a new clause in the act to prevent lawsuits, which, however advantageous they may sometimes be to me, I shall always be ready to obviate, it is surely proper to limit the claim of one party as well as that of the other, for how else is the ambiguity taken away?  The difficulty may be, indeed, transferred, but is by no means removed, and the innkeeper must wholly repose himself upon the lenity and justice of the soldier, or apply to the courts of law for the interpretation of the act.

The question before us is said to be so free from perplexity, that it can scarcely give occasion for harangues or disputations; and, indeed, it cannot but be allowed, that the controversy may soon be brought to a single point, and I think nothing more is necessary than to inquire, if innholders shall be obliged to provide victuals for soldiers at a stated price, what, and how much the soldier shall demand.