DECKER, SIR MATTHEW, BART., was born at Amsterdam iu the latter part of the 17th century, of a Protestant family originally from Flanders, where his ancestors had been engaged in commerce till they were driven out in the Spanish persecution under the Duke of Alva, leaving their estates to their Catholic relations, some of whom long continued to occupy eminent positions in the municipal govern ment at Brussels. Such was the account given by Sir Matthew him self to Collins, the genealogist, in 1727, as recorded by the latter in his English Baronetage,' iv. 185 (published in 1741). Decker came over to England in 1702 ; and be was naturalised the following year by the 28th private Act of the 2nd of Anne. Having settled as a merchant in London, he rose to great commercial eminence, was made a baronet in 1716, and in 1719 was returned to Parliament for Bishop's Castle. He only sat however in the House of Commons for four sessions, and his name does not occur in the reported debates. He married Hen rietta, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Richard Watkins, rector of Wickford, in Warwickshire; and he died March 18th, 1749, when the baronetcy became extinct, and his estates devolved upon his three daughters. It is said to have been in the gardens of Sir Matthew Decker's country seat at Richmond, in Surrey, that the pine-apple was first brought to maturity in England.
Decker is believed to be the author of a little work first published in Svo at London, in 1743, and entitled in the fourth edition, which appeared in the course of the following year, ' Serious Considerations on the several high duties which the nation in general (as well as its trade in particular) labours under ; with a proposal for preventing the running of goods; discharging the trade from any search, and raising all the public supplies by one single tax. By a well-wisher to the good people of Great Britain.' In tho seventh edition, which appeared in the same form in 1756, the tract is stated ou the title-page to be 'By the late Sir Matthew Decker, Bart.' It consists in both these editions of only 32 pages. The author explains his object in p. 15 "My proposal," he says, "in short, is this : that there be but one single excise duty over all Great Britain, and that upon houses." He would in this way raise an annual revcuue of 6,000,0001., being as much as the ordinary expenses of the government then amounted to ; with 1,000,000/. over to form a sinking-fund for the discharge of the debt. He calculates that in England, exclusive of Wales, there were then 1,200,000 houses; but of these he would tax only 600,000, counting off 500,000 as inhabited by the working and poorer classes, and 100,000 as uninhabited.
We do not know whether this scheme attracted much notice when it was first proposed, but, from the frequently with which it was reprinted, we may infer that it did. It was at any rate elaborately answered, soon after its republication iu 175G, in a thick pamphlet of 120 pp., entitled The proposal commonly called Sir Matthew Decker's scheme, for one general tax upon houses, laid open, and showed to be a deep concerted project to traduce the wisdom of the Legislature, disquiet the minds of the people, and ruin the trade and menu facturies [sic] of Great Britain ; most humbly submitted to the con sideration of Parliament,' 8vo, London, 1757. The author of this
attack is understood to be Mr. Joseph Massie, a fertile mercantile writer of that day. It is, as might be expected from the title, very angry, and even somewhat abusive.
Decker has also been commonly supposed to be the author of another more considerable work, first published in 4to at London, iu 1744, and reprinted in 12mo at Edinburgh, in 1756, both editions without a name, under the title of ' An Essay ou the Causes of the Decline of the Foreign Trade, consequently of the Value of the Lands of Britain, and on the means to restore both.' Adam Smith notices and comments upon this work as written by Decker, and designates the scheme of taxation advocated in it as "the well-known proposal of Sir Matthew Decker," in the fifth book of his Wealth of Nations.' It is very evident however that it cannot be by the author of the 'Serious Considerations,' for various reasons. As Mr. M'Culloch has remarked in his Literature of Political Economy,' p. 328, "the 'impdt unique,' or single tax, proposed by the author of the Essay' is quite different from that proposed in the 'Considerations;' it is, in his owu words, 'one tax on the cousumera of luxuries,' or, as Smith has put it, 'that all commodities, even those of which the consumption is either immediate or very speedy, should be taxed in this manner, the dealer advancing nothing, but the consumer paying a certain annual sum for the licence to consume certain goods.'" It may be added, that the edition of the 'Essay ' published in 1756 is ushered iu by a preface, evidently by the author, in which he speaks of this as a second edition, which he had been induced to prepare by the public demand, and in wIsich he had taken an opportunity of correcting some things in the preceding impression. Decker, as we have seen, died in 1749. Mr. M'Culloch states, that in a work by Francis Fauquier, entitled Essay on Waye and Means for raising Money for the support of the present War without increasing the Public Debts,' third edition, 8vo, 1757, it is affirmed that the 'Essay on the Decline of Foreign Trade' was written by a Mr. Richardson.
This 'Essay' is rather a remarkable work. Besides his main project for a single tax, which occupies above 200 of the 228 pages of which the volume (in the 12mo edition) consists, he advances the four fol lowing proposals :-1, to abolish all our monopolies, unite Ireland, and put all our fellow-subjects on the samo footing in trade; 2, to withdraw the bounties on exported corn, and to erect public magazines of corn In every county ; 3, to discourage idleness by wall regulating our poor (he adopts Sir Josiah Child's plan for the management of the poor, and wonld transport all able-bodied persons who cannot find employment); and 4, to pay off our debts by public bonds, bearing interest, and liquidating part of our debts yearly. The balance of trade theory is assumed, but many of the remarks aro both just and ingenious.