in a general sense, denotes terra firma, as distinguished from sea.

in a limited sense, denotes arable ground. See Agriculture.

the sea-language, makes part of several compound terms; thus, land-laid, or, to lay the land, is just to lose sight of it. Land-locked, is when land lies all round the ship, so that no point of the compass is open to the sea. If she is at anchor in such a place, she is said to ride land-locked, and is therefore concluded to ride safe from the violence of the winds and tides. Landmark, any mountain, rock, steeples, tree, &c. that may serve to make the land known at sea. Land is shut in, a term used to signify that another point of land hinders the sight of that from which the ship came. Land-to, or the ship lies land-to; that is, she is so far from shore, that it can only just be discerned. Land-turn is a wind that in almost all hot countries blows at certain times from the shore in the night. To set the land; that is, to see by the compass how it bears.

LAND-Tax, one of the annual taxes raised upon the subject. See Tax.

The land tax, in its modern shape, has superseded all the former methods of rating either property or persons in respect of their property, whether by tenths or fifteenths, subsidies on land, hydages, scutages, or tallages; a short explication of which will, however, greatly assist us in understanding our ancient laws and history.

Tenths and fifteenths were temporary aids issuing out of personal property, and granted to the king by parliament. They were formerly the real tenth or fifteenth part of all the moveables belonging to the subject; when such moveables, or personal estates, were a very different and a much less considerable thing than what they usually are at this day. Tenths are said to have been first granted under Henry II., who took advantage of the fashionable zeal for crusades to introduce this new taxation, in order to defray the expense of a pious expedition to Palestine, which he really or seemingly had projected against Saladin emperor of the Saracens, whence it was originally denominated the Saladine tenth. But afterwards fifteenths were more usually granted than tenths. Originally the amount of these taxes was uncertain, being levied by assessments new-made at every fresh grant of the commons, a commission for which is preserved by Matthew Paris; but it was at length reduced to a certainty in the eighth year of Edward III., when, by virtue of the king's commission, new taxes were made of every township, borough, and city in the kingdom, and recorded in the exchequer; which rate was, at the time, the fifteenth part of the value of every township, the whole amounting to about 29,000l., and therefore it still kept up the name of a fifteenth, when, by the alteration of the value of money and the increase of personal property, things came to be in a very different situation. So that when, of later years, the commons granted the king a fifteenth, every parish in England immediately knew their proportion of it; that is, the same identical sum that was assessed by the same aid in the eighth of Edward III.; and then raised it by a rate among themselves, and returned it into the royal exchequer.

The other ancient levies were in the nature of a modern land-tax: for we may trace up the original of that charge as high as to the introduction of our military tenures; when every tenant of a knight's fee was bound, if called upon, to attend the king in his army for 40 days in every year. But this personal attendance growing troublesome in many respects, the tenants found means of compounding for it, by first sending others in their stead, and in process of time by making a pecuniary satisfaction to the crown in lieu of it. This pecuniary satisfaction at last came to be levied by assessments, at so much for every knight's fee, under the name of scutages; which appear to have been levied for the first time in the fifth year of Henry II. on account of his expedition to Toulouse, and were then (Sir Wm. Blackstone apprehends) mere arbitrary compositions, as the king and the subject could agree. But this precedent being afterwards abused into a means of oppression (by laying scutages on the landholders by the king's authority only, whenever our kings went to war, in order to hire mercenary troops and pay their contingent expenses), it became thereupon a matter of national complaint; and King John was obliged to promise in his magna carta, that no scutage should be imposed without the consent of the common council of the realm.

Of the same nature with scutages upon knights-fees were the assessments of hydage upon all other lands, and of tallage upon cities and burghs. But they all gradually fell into disuse, upon the introduction of subsidies, about the time of King Richard II. and King Henry IV. These were a tax, not immediately imposed upon property, but upon persons in respect of their reputed estates, after the nominal rate of 4s. in the pound for lands, and 2s. 6d. for goods; and for those of aliens in a double proportion. But this assessment was also made according to an ancient valuation; wherein wherein the computation was so very moderate, and the rental of the kingdom was supposed to be so exceeding low, that one subsidy of this sort did not, according to Sir Edward Coke, amount to more than 70,000l., whereas a modern land tax at the same rate produces two millions. It was anciently the rule never to grant more than one subsidy and two fifteenths at a time; but this rule was broken through for the first time on a very pressing occasion, the Spanish invasion in 1588; when the parliament gave Queen Elizabeth two subsidies and four fifteenths. Afterwards, as money sunk in value, more subsidies were given; and we have an instance, in the first parliament of 1640, of the king's defining 12 subsidies of the commons, to be levied in three years; which was looked upon as a startling proposal: though Lord Clarendon tells us, that the speaker, Sir John Glanville, made it manifest to the house, how very inconsiderable a sum 12 subsidies amounted to, by telling them he had computed what he was to pay for them; and when he named the sum, he being known to be possessed of a great estate, it seemed not worth any farther deliberation. And, indeed, upon calculation, we shall find, that the total amount of these 12 subsidies, to be raised in three years, is less than what is now raised in one year by a land-tax of 2s. in the pound.

The grant of scutages, tallages, or subsidies by the commons, did not extend to spiritual preferments; those being usually taxed at the same time by the clergy themselves in convocation; which grants of the clergy were confirmed in parliament; otherwise they were illegal, and not binding; as the same noble writer observes of the subsidies granted by the convocation, which continued fitting after the dissolution of the first parliament in 1640. A subsidy granted by the clergy was after the rate of 4s. in the pound, according to the valuation of their livings in the king's books; and amounted, Sir Edward Coke tells us, to about 20,000l. While this custom continued, convocations were wont to sit as frequently as parliaments; but the last subsidies, thus given by the clergy, were those confirmed by statute 15 Car. II. c. 10, since which another method of taxation has generally prevailed, which takes in the clergy as well as the laity: in recompense for which, the beneficed clergy have from that period been allowed to vote at the election of knights of the shire; and thenceforward also the practice of giving ecclesiastical subsidies hath fallen into total disuse.

The lay-subsidy was usually raised by commissioners appointed by the crown, or the great officers of state; and therefore in the beginning of the civil wars between Charles I. and his parliament, the latter, having no other sufficient revenue to support themselves and their measures, introduced the practice of laying weekly and monthly assessments of a specific sum upon the several counties of the kingdom; to be levied by a pound-rate on lands and personal estates; which were occasionally continued during the whole usurpation, sometimes at the rate of 120,000l. a month, sometimes at inferior rates. After the Restoration, the ancient method of granting subsidies, instead of such monthly assessments, was twice, and twice only, renewed; viz. in 1663, when four subsidies were granted by the temporality and four by the clergy; and in 1670, when 800,000l. was raised by way of subsidy, which was the last time of raising supplies in that manner. For the monthly assessments being now established by custom, being raised by commissioners named by parliament, and producing a more certain revenue; from that time forwards we hear no more of subsidies, but occasional assessments were granted as the national emergencies required. These periodical assessments, the subsidies which preceded them, and the more ancient scutage, hydage, and tallage, were to all intents and purposes a land-tax; and the assessments were sometimes expressly called so. Yet a popular opinion has prevailed, that the land-tax was first introduced in the reign of King William III.; because in the year 1692 a new assessment or valuation of estates was made throughout the kingdom; which, though by no means a perfect one, had this effect, that a supply of 500,000l. was equal to 1s. in the pound of the value of estates given in. And, according to this enhanced valuation, from the year 1693 to the present, a period of near a century, the land-tax has continued an annual charge upon the subject; about half the time at 4s. in the pound, sometimes at 3s. sometimes at 2s. twice at 1s. but without any total intermission. The medium has been 3s. 3d. in the pound; being equivalent to 23 ancient subsidies, and amounting annually to more than a million and a half of money. The method of raising it is by charging a particular sum upon each county, according to the valuation given in, A.D. 1692; and this sum is assessed and raised upon individuals (their personal estate, as well as real, being liable thereto), by commissioners appointed in the act, being the principal land holders in the county and their officers.

An act passes annually for the raising, in general, 2,037,627l. 9s. 10½d. by the above said tax at 4s. in the pound; whereof there shall be raised in the several counties in England, according to the proportions expressed in the act, 1,989,673l. 7s. 10½d.; and in Scotland, 47,054l. 1s. 2d. by an eight months cess of 5994l. 5s. 1½d. per annum, to be raised out of the land-rent, and to be paid at four terms, as specified in the act, by two months amount each time.

Land-Waiter, an officer of the custom-house, whose duty is, upon landing any merchandise, to examine, taste, weigh, measure them, &c. and to take an account thereof. In some ports they also execute the office of a coast-waiter. They are likewise occasionally styled searchers, and are to attend and join with the patent searcher in the execution of all cockets for the shipping of goods to be exported to foreign parts; and in cases where drawbacks on bounties are to be paid to the merchant on the exportation of any goods, they, as well as the patent searchers, are to certify the shipping thereof on the debentures.