WHEREAS it appeareth to severall Grand Assemblies that the lists of tithable persons are very imperfect, and that notwithstandinge the yearly importation of people into the collonie, the number of tithables in the said lists is rather diminished then augmented, which is in great part conceived, by this Assembly, to happpen, in that all under the age of sixteen yeeres are exempted from the lists, and that once passing under that age they are seldom or never acknowledged to exceed the same, in respect of the impossibility of, or at least unlikelyhood of produceinge convinceing proofes against them: Bee it therefore enacted, for the preventing of the like abuse hereafter through false & imperfect lists, That all male servants imported hereafter into the collony of what age soever they be, shall be brought into the lists and shall be liable to pay country leavyes, excepting in this act such as are natives of this collony and such as are imported free, either by theire parents or otherwise, who are exempted from leavies, being under the said age of sixteen years.