The best known of these, perhaps, is the repurchase of large pastoral estates for subdivision and lease in perpetuity.
Money had to be raised by taxation, and at a meeting of the states-general (March 20, 1569) the governor-general proposed (1) an immediate tax of 1% on all property, (2) a tax of 5% on all transfers of real estate, (3) a tax of io% on the sale of all articles of commerce, the last two taxes to be granted in perpetuity.
By this law a tenant-farmer is able to bequeath his farm, that is to say, he holds his lease in perpetuity.
In return for the great accessions of power to France since the treaty of Amiens (Elba, it may be noted, was annexed in August 1802) Great Britain was to retain Malta for ten years and to acquire the small island of Lampedusa in perpetuity.
To him was decreed the presidence of the Senate in perpetuity.
