In submitting the following pages to the public, the writer is actuated chiefly by a desire of redressing a manifest and undeniable grievance, which has long been acknowledged to press with peculiar hardship upon the middling classes. He has not gone out of his way to attack the Window Duty, but finding himself oppressed and aggrieved thereby he hesitated not to grapple with the foe. Neither should he in the present embarrassing state of the finances of the country have stepped forward in this manner if it had not been for the asperity and rigour of the executive in the New Survey, which has certainly exceeded that of any former one, and which he thinks has gone beyond the intentions of the legislature, and overstrained the bow. There is a point beyond which the force of pressure cannot go with safety, and it is to be hoped that the greatest good may result from this apparent evil.