The Life of Benjamin Franklin

CHAPTER V.

Franklin sends his Wife a New Dress on the Repeal of the Stamp Act,

New Disputes with the Mother Country-Colonies required to provide for Soldiers—Lord Chatham-Marriage of Sally Franklin-Experiment of making Paper Money not a Legal Tender-Advances of the French Ambassador to Franklin-Visits the Continent--First Impressions of France and Germany.

1766–1767.

To his wife, As the Stamp Act is at length repealed,* I dated London, 6 April, am willing you should have a new gown,

which 1766.

you may suppose I did not send sooner, as I knew you would not like to be finer than your neighbours, unless in a gown of your own spinning. Had the trade between the two countries totally ceased, it was a comfort to me to recollect, that I had once been clothed from head to foot in woollen and linen of my wife's manufacture, that I never was prouder of any dress in my life, and that she 154. Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction ?

* Dr. Franklin's exam nation closed the 13th February. The bill for the repeal of the Stamp Act received the royal assent the 18th of the following month. Though this repeal was followed by a Declaratory Act no less offensive in principle than the one it succeeded, affirming "the right of Parliament to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever," the colonies were frantic with joy, and the enthusiasm for Franklin, both at home and abroad, was unbounded.-ED.

A. “ The common rights of Englishmen,'' as declared by Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, all justify it.

155. Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the words of the charter ?

A. No, I believe not.

156. Q. Then, may they not, by the same interpretation, object to the Parliament's right of external taxation ?

A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them, that there is no difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments. r

157. Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pennsylvania assembly say, “ all taxes''?

| A. If they do, they mean only internal taxes; the same words have not always the same meaning here and in the colonies. By taxes, they mean internal taxes; by duties, they mean customs; these are their ideas of the language.

158. Q. Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachusetts Bay assembly?

A. I have.

159. Q. Do they not say, that neither external nor internal taxes can be laid on them by Parliament?

A. I don't know that they do; I believe not.

160. Q. If the same colony should say, neither tax nor imposition could be laid, does not that province hold the power of Parliament can lay neither?

A. I suppose, that, by the word imposition, they do not

intend to express duties to be laid on goods imported, as regulations of commerce.

161. Q. What can the colonies mean then by imposition, as distinct from taxes ?

A. They may mean many things, as impressing of men or of carriages, quartering troops on private houses, and the like; there may be great impositions that are not properly taxes.

162. Q. Is not the post-office rate an internal tax laid by act of Parliament?

A. I have answered that.

163. Q. Are all parts of the colonies equally able to pay taxes ?

A. No, certainly; the frontier parts, which have been ravaged by the enemy, are greatly disabled by that means; and therefore, in such cases, are usually favored in our tax laws.

164. Q. Can we, at this distance, be competent judges of what favors are necessary ?

A. The Parliament have supposed it, by claiming a right to make tax laws for America; I think it impossible.

165. Q. Would the repeal of the Stamp Act be any discouragement of your manufactures ? Will the people that have begun to manufacture decline it?

A. Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time, the trade is opened again, so that remittances can be easily made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into family manufactures. Afterwards, when tobacco bore a better price, they returned to the use of British manufactures. So fulling-mills were very much disused in the last

154. Q. Are there any words in the charter that justify that construction?

A. “ The common rights of Englishmen," as declared by Magna Charta, and the Petition of Right, all justify it.

155. Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the words of the charter ?

A. No, I believe not.

156. Q. Then, may they not, by the same interpretation, object to the Parliament's right of external taxation ?

A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments have been lately used here to show them, that there is no difference, and that, if you have no right to tax them internally, you have none to tax them externally, or make any other law to bind them. At present they do not reason so ; but in time they may possibly be convinced by these arguments.

157. Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pennsylvania assembly say, "all taxes''?

158. Q. Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachusetts Bay assembly?

A. I have.
159. Q. Do they not say, that neither e

internal taxes can be laid on them by Parlia

A. I don't know that they do; I bel

160. Q. If the same colony shoul imposition could be laid, does not power of Parliament can lay neith

A. I suppose, that, by the wo