The debates of the Commons on the conduct of the war, on the law of treason and on the trade with India, occupied much time, and produced no important result.  But meanwhile real business was doing in the Committee of Supply and the Committee of Ways and Means.  In the Committee of Supply the estimates passed rapidly.  A few members declared it to be their opinion that England ought to withdraw her troops from the Continent, to carry on the war with vigour by sea, and to keep up only such an army as might be sufficient to repel any invader who might elude the vigilance of her fleets.  But this doctrine, which speedily became and long continued to be the badge of one of the great parties in the state, was as yet professed only by a small minority which did not venture to call for a division.363

In the Committee of Ways and Means, it was determined that a great part of the charge of the year should be defrayed by means of an impost, which, though old in substance, was new in form.  From a very early period to the middle of the seventeenth century, our Parliaments had provided for the extraordinary necessities of the government chiefly by granting subsidies.  A subsidy was raised by an impost on the people of the realm in respect of their reputed estates.  Landed property was the chief subject of taxation, and was assessed nominally at four shillings in the pound.  But the assessment was made in such a way that it not only did not rise in proportion to the rise in the value of land or to the fall in the value of the precious metals, but went on constantly sinking, till at length the rate was in truth less than twopence in the pound.  In the time of Charles the First a real tax of four shillings in the pound on land would probably have yielded near a million and a half; but a subsidy amounted to little more than fifty thousand pounds.364

The financiers of the Long Parliament devised a more efficient mode of taxing estates.  The sum which was to be raised was fixed.  It was then distributed among the counties in proportion to their supposed wealth, and was levied within each county by a rate.  The revenue derived from these assessments in the time of the Commonwealth varied from thirty-five thousand pounds to a hundred and twenty thousand pounds a month.

After the Restoration the legislature seemed for a time inclined to revert, in finance as in other things, to the ancient practice.  Subsidies were once or twice granted to Charles the Second.  But it soon appeared that the old system was much less convenient than the new system.  The Cavaliers condescended to take a lesson in the art of taxation from the Roundheads; and, during the interval between the Restoration and the Revolution, extraordinary calls were occasionally met by assessments resembling the assessments of the Commonwealth.  After the Revolution, the war with France made it necessary to have recourse annually to this abundant source of revenue.  In 1689, in 1690 and in 1691, great sums had been raised on the land.  At length in 1692 it was determined to draw supplies from real property more largely than ever.  The Commons resolved that a new and more accurate valuation of estates should be made over the whole realm, and that on the rental thus ascertained a pound rate should be paid to the government.