Title: Marginalia in [Josiah Tucker], A Letter from a Merchant, [1770?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

The Rev. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester, was one of the more prolific pamphleteers of his time, and one of the few whose work still commands attention. He was an economist as well as a theologian, and his economic ideas led him gradually to the conclusion that the colonies were an encumbrance that the mother country could best do without. The conclusion was based solely on British self-interest as he saw it; with the colonists’ arguments about their rights he had no patience. The sovereignty of Parliament was for him unlimited: the Americans were virtually represented in it and hence might be taxed by it. He was singularly contemptuous of them, even by the standards of the day. His contempt showed in the form in which he cast this pamphlet, which was ostensibly the letter of a wise old man to his young and callow relative, an imaginary background that gave the “uncle” free rein to write with a condescension that seems almost designed to infuriate.
Franklin was infuriated. He tore into the Dean’s arguments with his usual vigor and at unusual length; he commented more fully than on any other pamphlet that has survived. The bulk of his notes permits extensive quotation, rather than paraphrase, of Tucker’s accompanying text, from which its tone as well as style becomes all too clear. Franklin’s responses are interesting for their range (and occasionally their rage) rather than their originality: except for his views on property qualifications for voting, most of these marginalia repeat, at times almost verbatim, those in other pamphlets. Like them, these cannot be dated with confidence, although they were clearly written after news of the Boston Massacre reached London—more than four years, in other words, after the pamphlet was written. Franklin bought it and kept it on his shelves intending to read it, we conjecture; when he finally did so he exploded into rebuttal.

      This is quoted upon the Supposition that the Point disputed is indisputable, viz. The Power of Parliament to make Laws binding in America, and to repeal Laws of the Colonies after they have had the Royal Assent. This Clause is void in itself, being contrary to the original Compact contained in the Colony Charters.
      The letter deals with the colonists’ position, discusses the supposed violation of their charters and other grievances, and explains the consequences if they attempt to gain independence. There follows a quotation from 7–8 Wm. III, c. 22, asserting the supremacy of parliamentary statutes over all colonial usages or legislation.

      This is wickedly intended by the Author (Dean Tucker) to represent the E[nglish] North Americans as the Cause of the War, Whereas it was in fact begun by the French, who seized the Goods and Persons of the English Traders on the Ohio: encroached on the King’s Lands in Nova Scotia and took a Fort from the Ohio Company by force of Arms; which induc’d England to make Reprisals at Sea, and to send Braddock to recover the Fort on the Ohio, whence came on the War.
      “Your Letters gave me formerly no small Pleasure, because they seem to have proceeded from a good Heart, guided by an Understanding more enlightened than is usually found among young Men.” The indignation you express against the frauds, robberies, and insults that lost us the affections of the Indians is particularly commendable, for those acts involved us in the bloodiest and most expensive war ever known and, if repeated, will drive the savages to seek revenge. You were therefore right in expressing your detestation of such practices.

      But recently your tone has changed. Your mind seems agitated, and your reasoning incoherent and contradictory. Perhaps you want changes in your government, or perhaps you have the mistaken notion that we are making changes. Why do you keep harping on the

      There is no doubt but Taxes laid in Parliament where the Parliament hath Jurisdiction, are legal Taxes; but doth it follow that Taxes laid by the Parliament of England on Scotland before the Union, on Guernsey, Jersey, Ireland, Hanover, or any other Dominions of the Crown not within the Realm, are therefore legal. These Writers against the Colonies all bewilder themselves by supposing the Colonies within the Realm, which is not the Case, nor ever was.
      spirit of the constitution? It does not help your cause. “Magna Charta, for Example, is … the Basis of the English Constitution. But, by the Spirit of Magna Charta, all Taxes laid on by Parliament are constitutional legal Taxes; and Taxes raised by the Prerogative of the Crown, without the Consent of Parliament are illegal. Now remember, young Man, That the late Tax or Duties upon Stamps was laid on by Parliament; and therefore, according to your own Way of reasoning, must have been a regular, constitutional, legal Tax. Nay more, the principal End and Intention of Magna Charta, as far as Taxation is concerned, was to assert the Authority and Jurisdiction of the three Estates of the Kingdom, in Opposition to the sole Prerogative of the King: so that if you will now plead the Spirit of Magna Charta against the Jurisdiction of Parliament, you will plead Magna Charta against itself.”

      This then is the Spirit of the Constitution, that Taxes shall not be laid with[out] the Consent of those to be taxed. The Colonies were not then in being and therefore nothing relating to them could be literally express’d. As the Americans are now without the Realm, and out of the Jurisdiction of Parliament, the Spirit of the British Constitution dictates, that they should be taxed only by their own Representatives as the English are by theirs.

      These subjects, like changeable silks, have different colors when seen in different lights. Let us move from the spirit of the constitution

      This Position supposes, that Englishmen can never be out of the Jurisdiction of Parliament. It may as well be said, that wherever an Englishman resides, that Country is England. While an Englishman resides in England he is undoubtedly subject to its Laws. If he goes in to a foreign Country he is subject to the Laws and Government he finds there. If he finds no Government or Laws there, he is subject there to none, till he and his Companions if he has any make Laws for themselves. And this was the Case of the first Settlers in America. Otherwise and if they carried the English Laws and Power of Parliament with them, what Advantage could the Puritans propose to themselves by going, since they would have been as subject to Bishops, Spiritual Courts, Tythes, and Statutes relating to the Church in America as in England? Can the Dean on his Principles tell us how it happens that those Laws, the Game Acts, the Statutes for Labourers, and an infinity of others made before and since the Emigration, are not in force in America, nor ever were?
      to the constitution itself, which is a factual matter. “The first Emigrants, who settled in America, were certainly English Subjects;—subject to the Laws and Jurisdiction of Parliament, and consequently to parliamentary Taxes, before their Emigration; and therefore subject afterwards, unless some legal constitutional Exemption can be produced.

      “Now this is the Question, and the sole Question between you and me, reduced to a plain, single Matter of Fact. Is there therefore any such Exemption, as here pretended? And if you have it, why do you not produce it?—‘The King, you say, hath granted Charters of Exemption to the American Colonies.’ This is now coming to the Point: and this will bring the Dispute to a short Issue. Let us therefore first enquire, Whether he could legally and constitutionally grant you such a Charter? And secondly, Whether he did ever so much as attempt to do it? And whether any such Charters are upon Record?

      “Now, upon the first settling of an English Colony, and before ever you, Americans, could have chosen any Representatives, … to whose

      The Author here appears quite ignorant of the Fact. The Colonies carried no Law with them, They carried only a Power of making Law, or adopting such Parts of the English Law, or of any other Law, as they should think suitable to their Circumstances. The first Settlers of Connecticut, for Instance, at their first Meeting in that Country, finding themselves out of all Jurisdiction of other Governments, resolved and enacted, That till a Code of Laws should be prepared and agreed to, they would be governed by the Law of Moses, as contained in the Old Testament.
      Laws, and to what legislative Power were you then subject? To the English most undoubtedly; for you could have been subject to no other. You were Englishmen yourselves; and you carried the English Government, and an English Charter over along with you. This being the Case, were you not then in the same Condition, as to Constitutional Rights and Liberties, with the rest of your Fellow-subjects, who remained in England?

      You are too positive, Mr. Dean.
      Certainly you were. … You ought not to have been placed in a worse: and surely you had no Right to expect a better. Suppose therefore, that the Crown had been so ill advised, as to have granted a Charter to any City

      If the first Settlers had no Right to expect a better Constitution, what Fools were they for going over, to encounter all the Hardships and Perils of new Settlements in a Wilderness! for these were so many Additions to what they suffer’d at home from tyrannical and oppressive Institutions in Church and State if they carried those Institutions with them, with a Subtraction of all their old Enjoyments of the Conveniencies and Comforts of an old Settled Country, Friends, Neighbours, Relations, Homes, &c &c.

      The American Settlers needed no Exemption from the Power of Parliament; they were necessarily exempted as soon as they landed out of its Jurisdiction. Therefore all this Rhetorical Paragraph is founded on a Mistake of the Author; he talks of is of his own Making.
      or County here in England, pretending to exempt them from the Power and Jurisdiction of an English Parliament;—what would the Judges? what would the Lawyers? nay, what would you Americans have said to it? … Is it possible for you to believe, that the King has a Power vested in him by the Constitution of dividing his Kingdom into several independent States, and petty Kingdoms, like the Heptarchy in the Times of the Saxons? … Is it possible, I say, for you to believe an Absurdity so gross and glaring?” The alternative is to believe that the King can do in America what he can not do in England, which

      What Stuff! Why may not an American plead for the just Prerogatives of the Crown? And is it not a just Prerogative of the Crown to give the Subjects Leave to settle in a foreign Country if they think it necessary to ask such Leave? Was the Parliament at all considered or consulted in making these first Settlements? [No]r did any Lawyer then think it necessary.
      means exalting his power. “An American pleading for the Extension of the Prerogative of the Crown? Yes, if it could make for his Cause;—and for extending it too beyond all the Bounds of Law, of Reason, and of Common Sense!”

      It was not a Renunciation of [a] Right of Parliament; There was no Need of such a Renunciation, for Parliament had not then pretended to such a Right. But since the Royal Faith was pledg’d by the King for himself and his Successors, how can any succeeding King, without violating that Faith, even give his Assent to an Act of Parliament for such Taxation?
      Although I have supposed for argument’s sake that the crown was so ill advised as to grant illegal and unconstitutional charters, the fact was very different. [Footnote: Kings formerly claimed the right to tax without the consent of Parliament; but this right was not insisted on in any of the charters, and was explicitly surrendered in that of Maryland. Now this renunciation of an obsolete prerogative is made into the renunciation by Parliament of the right to raise taxes. The King was promising only for himself, not for Parliament.] No such unconstitutional charters were ever

      A Fib, Mr. Dean: In one Charter only, and that a later one, is the Parliament mentioned: And the right reserved is only that of laying Duties on Commodities imported from the Colony or exported to it.
      granted. “Nay, many of your Colony Charters assert quite the contrary, by containing express Reservations of Parliamentary Rights, particularly that great one of levying Taxes. And those Charters which do not make such Provisoes in express Terms, must be supposed virtually to

      Suppositions and Implications will not weigh in these important Cases.
      imply them; because the Law and Constitution will not allow, that the King can do more either at home or abroad, by the Prerogative Royal,

      No Law or Constitution forbad the King’s doing what he did in granting those Charters.
      than the Law and Constitution authorize him to do.”

      This Instance would be something, if London was not within the Realm. Whereas the Colonies are without; and therefore ’tis nothing to the purpose, convinces no American of any thing but the pert positiveness and Ignorance of the Author.
      If you want a striking proof of this argument I will give you one, “and such an one too, as shall convince you, if anything can, of the Folly and Absurdity of your Positions.” The City of London has long enjoyed great liberties under its charter, but no Londoner would think of pleading them as ground for being exempted from Parliamentary authority or taxation. If any one did he would be sent, not to prison, but “to

      The difference between a Fool and a Madman is said to be, that the Fool reasons wrong from right Premises, the Madman right but from wrong Premises. This seems the Case of our Author, and therefore that Place perhaps more suitable for him.
      another Place of Confinement, much fitter for a Person in his unhappy Situation.

      “And now, my good Friend, what can you say to these things?—The only thing which you ought to say, is,—that you did not see the Affair in its true Light before: and that you are sincerely sorry for having been so positive in a

      This is Hollowing before you are out of the Wood.
      wrong Cause. Confuted most undoubtedly you are beyond the Possibility of a Reply. …” But your letters indicate that you have other arguments than the charters. What are they? The cruelty of taxing a free people without permitting them to have representatives? “Strange, that though the British Parliament has been, from the Beginning, thus unreasonable, … you should not

    False! Never before the Restoration.

      The Parliament, it is acknowledged, have made many oppressive Laws relating to America, which have passed without Opposition, partly thro’ the Weakness of the Colonies, partly thro’ their Inattention to the full Extent of their Rights while employ’d in Labour to procure the Necessaries of Life. But that is a wicked Guardian, and a Shameless one, who first takes Advantage of the Weakness incident to Minority, cheats and Imposes on his Pupil; and when that Pupil comes of Age urges those very Impositions as Precedents to justify continuing them and adding others!
      have been able to have discovered, that you were without Representatives in the British Parliament, of your own electing, till this enlightening Tax upon Paper opened your Eyes! And what a pity is it, that you have been Slaves for so many Generations, and yet did not know, that you were Slaves until now.”

      But let that pass. If you mean anything by the cruelty of the mother country, you must mean that she deals worse with you than with her own inhabitants, by denying you rights and privileges that they enjoy. But what are these rights? Name them if you can. The right of voting for members of Parliament? “But surely you will not dare to say, that we refuse your Votes, when you come hither to offer them, and

      This is all Banter and Insult, when you know the Impossibility of a Million of Freeholders coming over Sea to vote here. If their Freeholds in America were within the Realm, why have they not, in virtue of those Freeholds, a Right to vote in your Elections as well as an English Freeholder? Sometimes we are told, that our Estates are by our Charters all in the Manor of East Greenwich and therefore all in England, and yet have we any Rights to vote among the Voters of East Greenwich? Can we trade to the same Ports? In this very Paragraph you suppose that we cannot vote in England if we come thither, till we have by Purchase acquired a Right, therefore neither we nor our Estates are represented in England.
      choose to poll: you cannot have the Face to assert, that on an Election Day any Difference is put between the Vote of a Man born in America, and of one born here in England. Yet this you must assert, and prove too, before you can do any thing to the present purpose. Suppose therefore, that an American … is become a Freeman, or a Freeholder here in England;—on that State of the Case, prove if you can, that his Vote was ever refused, because he was born in America:—Prove this, I say, and then I will allow, that your Complaints are very just; and that you are indeed the much injured, the cruelly-treated People, you would make the World believe.

      This is all beside the Mark. The Americans are by their Constitutions provided with a Representation, and therefore need nor desire any in the British Parliament. They have never ask’d any such Thing. They only say, since we have a Right to grant our own Money to the King; since we have Assemblies where we are represented for such Purposes, why will you meddle out of your Sphere, take the Money that is ours and give it as yours without our Consent?
      “But, my good Friend, is this supposed refusal the real Cause of your Complaint? … Oh! no, you have no Complaint of this sort to make: but the Cause of your Complaint is this; that you live at too great a Distance from the Mother Country to be present at our English Elections. … It may be so; but pray consider, if you yourselves do choose to make it inconvenient for you to come and vote, by retiring into distant Countries,—what is that to us?” You live in the colonies because you prefer to do so; why should we be compelled to remodel our ancient

      An absolute Falshood: We never demanded in any Manner, much less in the Manner you mention, that the Mother Country should change her Constitution.
      constitution at your behest? “You demand it too with a loud Voice, full of Anger, of Defiance, and Denunciation.”

      Why then do you not give them a Representation?
      But let us be reasonable. Grant that the colonies are unrepresented; what does this mean? At least six million inhabitants of the British Isles are also unrepresented, not from the necessity

      Copyholds and Leaseholds are suppos’d to be represented in the original Landlord of Whom they are held. Thus all the Land in England is in fact represented notwithstanding what he here says.
      of distance as in your case, but because of accidents of property-holding. “Copyholds and Leaseholds of various Kinds” have no representatives; I myself am possessed of “property in London, and of several Copyholds and beneficial Leaseholds in the Country, and yet … I never had a Vote. Moreover, in some Towns neither Freedom, nor Birth-right, nor the serving of an Apprenticeship, shall entitle a man to give a Vote. … In other Towns the most numerous, the most populous, and flourishing of any, there are no Freedoms or Votes of any Sort; but all is open; and none are represented. And besides all this, … the great

      As to those who have no Landed Property in a Country, the allowing them to vote for Legislators is an Impropriety. They are transient Inhabitants, and not so connected with the Welfare of the State which they may quit when they please, as to qualify them properly for such Privilege.

      By this Argument it may be prov’d that no Man in England has a Vote. The Clergy have none as Clergymen; the Lawyers none as Lawyers, the Physicians none as Physicians, and so on. But if they have Votes as Freeholders that is sufficient: And that no Freeholder in America has for a Representative in the British Parliament.
      East India Company, which have such vast Settlements, and which dispose of the Fate of Kings and Kingdoms abroad, have not so much as a single Member, or even a single Vote, quatenus a Company, to watch over their Interests at home. What likewise shall we say in regard to the prodigious number of Stockholders in our public Funds?

      The Stockholders are many of them Foreigners, and all may be so when they please, as nothing is more easy than the transferring of Stock, and conveying Property beyond Sea by Bills of Exchange. Such uncertain Subjects are therefore not properly vested with Rights relating to Government.
      And may not their Property, perhaps little short of One hundred Millions Sterling, as much deserve to be represented in Parliament, as the scattered Townships, or straggling Houses of some of your Provinces in America? yet we raise no Commotions; we neither ring the Alarm-Bell, nor sound the Trumpet; but submit to be taxed without being represented;—and

      This is wickedly false. While the Colonies were weak and poor, not a Penny or a single Soldier was ever spared by Britain for their Defence: But as soon as the Trade with them became an Object, and a Fear arose that the French would seize that Trade and deprive her of it, she sent Troops to America unask’d. And now brings this Account of the Expence against us, which should be rather carried to her own Merchants and Manufacturers. We join’d our Troops and Treasure with hers, to help her in this War. Of this no Notice is taken. To refuse to pay a just Debt is Knavish. Not to return an Obligation is Ingratitude: But to demand Payment of a Debt where none has been contracted, to forge a Bond or an Obligation in order to demand what was never due is infamous Villainy. Every Year both King and Parliament (during the War) acknowledged that we had done more than our Part, and made us some Return, which is equivalent to a Receipt in full and entirely sets aside this monstrous Claim.
      taxed too, let me tell you, for your Sakes. Witness the additional Duties on our Lands, Windows, Houses;—also on our Malt, Beer, Ale, Cyder, Perry, Wines, Brandy, Rum, Coffee, Chocolate, &c. &c. &c. for defraying the Expences of the late War,—not forgetting the grievous Stamp-Duty itself. All this, I say, we submitted to, when you were, or at least, when you pretended to be, in great Distress: so that neither Men, almost to the last Drop of Blood we could spill,—nor Money, to the last Piece of Coin, were spared; but all was granted away, all was made

      Never.
      a Sacrifice, when you cried out for Help.” In the war we acquired a debt unparalleled in history, just as “the Returns which you have made us for these Succours” are also unparalleled.

      By all means redress your own Grievances. If you are not just to your own People, how can we trust you? We ask no Representation among you: But if you have any thing wrong among yourselves, rectify it, and do not make one Injustice a Precedent and Plea for doing another. That would be increasing Evil in the World instead of diminishing it.
      But let us come to the subject that you are trying to make the basis of your case: the fact that you, like so many of us, are unrepresented. Which lack of representation “deserves first to be redressed?” Suppose that we ought to increase the size of the House of Commons in order to accommodate representatives of those British subjects who now have none, we must first settle the proportions. If the two million now represented elect 558 members as at present, six million will need 1,674, and the two million colonists will require an additional 558, making

      You need not be concern’d about the Number to be added from America. We do not desire to come among you. But you may make some Room for your own additional Members by removing those that are sent by the rotten Burroughs.
      a total assembly of 2,790 members. “A goodly Number truly! and very proper for the Dispatch of Business! Oh, the Decency and Order of such an Assembly! The Wisdom and Gravity of Two thousand Seven hundred and Ninety Legislators all met together in one Room! What a Pity is it, that so hopeful a Project

      This Banter very useless and silly.
      should not be carried into immediate Execution!

      In the same Manner Mr. Dean, are the Pope and Cardinals Representatives of the whole Christian Church. Why don’t you obey them?
      “But … I must now tell you, that every Member of Parliament represents you and me, and our Interests in all essential Points, just as much as if we had voted for him.” For as soon as he is elected

      What occasion is there then, my dear Sir, of being at the Trouble of Elections? The Peers alone would do as well for our Guardians tho’ chosen by the King or born such. If their present Number is too small, his Majesty may be good enough to add 558, or make the present House of Commons and their Heirs male Peers for ever. If having a Vote in Elections would be of no Use to us, how is it of any to you? Elections are the Causes of much Tumult, Riot, Contention and Mischief; get rid of them at once and for ever.
      he becomes responsible for the interests of all, a guardian of the general welfare rather than of the particular interests of his constituency. Boston and New York are as truly represented as Manchester and Leeds by the 558 members, who are numerous enough to secure the rights and liberties of all.

      But you may say that each member must look out for his own interests in order to secure reelection. Perhaps, but who can guard against all dangers? What system is perfect? Your objection, furthermore, proves too much—that no man ought to pay any tax until his own particular representative has consented to it, and therefore that whoever does not have a representative in Parliament is not obliged to obey its laws or pay its taxes.

      You seem to take your Nephew for a Simpleton, Mr. Dean. Every one who votes for a Representative knows and intends that the Majority is to govern; and that the Consent of the Majority is to be understood as the Consent of the whole, that being ever the Case in all deliberative Assemblies.
      Where will you turn to extricate yourself from your logical difficulties? You cannot say that representatives whom such a man never chose have a right to tax him “because he makes a Part of the Body Politic implied in, and concluded by the rest;—you cannot say this,

      How far, my dear Sir, would you yourself carry the Doctrine of Implication? If important Positions are to be imply’d when not express’d, I suppose you can have no Objection to their being imply’d where some Expression countenances the Implication. If you should say to a Friend, I am your humble Servant, Sir, ought he to imply from thence that you will clean his Shoes?
      because the Doctrine of Implication is the very Thing to which you object, and against which you have raised so many Batteries of popular Noise and Clamour. Nay, as the Objection is entirely of your own making, it must go still further: for if your Argument is good for any thing, it is as good for North America as it is for Great Britain: and consequently you must

      No Freeholder in North America is without a Vote. Many who have no Freeholds have nevertheless a Vote, which indeed I do not think was necessary to be allowed.
      maintain, that all those in your several Provinces who have no Votes (and many Thousands of such there are)” and also all those whose representatives did not consent to a provincial tax should not be compelled to pay it. “These now are the”

      Not of our Principles but of what you are pleas’d to imagine such.
      happy Consequences of your own Principles, fairly, clearly, and evidently deduced: Will you abide by them?”

      What would you say if you discovered that the House of Commons has been more partial to you than to the British? This can be proved from the statute book. You have the choice, for example, “whether you will accept of my Price for your Tobacco,—or after bringing it here,

      A great Kindness this, to oblige me first to bring it here that the Expence of another Voyage and Freight may deter me from carrying it away, and oblige me to take the Price you are pleas’d to offer.
      whether you will carry it away, and try your Fortune at another Market: but I have no alternative allowed, being obliged to buy yours at your own Price; or else to pay such a Duty for

      You lay a Duty on the Tobacco of other Countries, because you must pay Money for that, but get ours in Exchange for your Manufactures.
      the Tobacco of other Countries, as must amount to a Prohibition. Nay, in order to favour your Plantations, I am

      Tobacco is not permitted to be planted in England, lest it should interfere with the Corn necessary for your Subsistence.
        Rice you cannot raise. It requires 11 Months, your Summer is too short. Nature not the Laws denies you this Product.
      not permitted to plant this Herb on my own Estate, though the Soil should be ever so proper for it. Again, the same Choice, and the same Alternative are allowed to you, and denied to me, in regard to Rice; with this additional Advantage, that in many Respects you need not bring it into England at all, unless you are so minded. And what will you say in Relation to Hemp? The

      Did ever any North American bring his Hemp to England for this Bounty? We have yet not enough for our own Consumption. We begin to make our own Cordage. You want to suppress that Manufacture and would do it by getting the raw Material from us: You want to be supply’d with Hemp for your Manufactures, and Russia demands Money. These were the Motives for giving what you are pleased to call a Bounty to us. We thank you for your Bounties. We love you and therefore must be oblig’d to you for being good to yourselves. You do not encourage raising Hemp in England, because you know it impoverishes the richest Grounds; your Land Owners are all against it. What you call Bounties given by Parliament and the Society are nothing more than Inducements offered us, to induce us to leave Employments that are more profitable and engage in such as would be less so without your Bounty; to quit a Business profitable to ourselves and engage in one that shall be profitable to you; this is the true Spirit of all your Bounties. Your Duties on foreign Articles are from the same Motives. Pitch, Tar and Turpentine used to cost you £5 a Barrel when you had them from Foreigners, who us’d you ill into the Bargain, thinking you could not do without them. You gave a bounty of 5s. a Barrel to the Colonies, and they have brought you such Plenty as to reduce the Price to 10s. a Barrel. Take back your Bounties when you please, since you upbraid us with them. Buy your Indigo, Pitch, Silk, and Tobacco where you please, and let us buy our Manufactures where we please. I fancy we shall be Gainers. I am sick of these forged Obligations. As to the great Kindness of these 558 Parliamentary Guardians of American Privileges, who can forbear smiling that has seen the Navigation Act, the Hatters Act, the Steel, Hammer and Slit Iron Acts, and numberless others restraining our Trade, obstructing our Manufactures, and forbidding us the Use of the Gifts of God and Nature? Hopeful Guardians truly! Can it be imagined that if we had a reasonable Share in selecting them from time to time they would thus have us’d us?
      Parliament now gives you a Bounty of £8 per Ton for exporting your Hemp from North America; but will allow me nothing for growing it here in England; nay, will tax me very severely for fetching it from any other country; though it be an Article most essentially necessary for all the Purposes of Shipping and Navigation. Moreover in respect to the Culture of Raw Silk, you have an immense Parliamentary Premium for that Purpose; and you receive farther Encouragements from our Society for Arts and Sciences, which is continually adding fresh Rewards:—but I can receive no Encouragement either from the one, or from the other, to bear my Expences at first setting out;—though most undeniably the white Mulberry-Trees can thrive as well on my Grounds, as they can in Switzerland, Brandenburgh, Denmark, or Sweden, where vast Quantities are now raising. Take another instance: Why shall I not be permitted to buy Pitch, Tar, and Turpentine,—without which I cannot put my Ships to sea,—and Indigo, so useful in many Manufactures;—why shall not I be permitted to purchase these Articles wherever I can, the best in their kind, and on the best Terms?—No, I shall not; for though they are all raw Materials, which therefore ought to have been imported Duty free, yet I am restrained by an heavy Duty, almost equal to a Prohibition, from purchasing them anywhere, but from you:—Whereas you on the contrary, are paid a Bounty for selling these very Articles, at the only Market, in which you could sell them to advantage, viz. the English.

      See the Statutes too for the Navigation Act.
      [Footnote: Those who have not the Statutes at large, may see the Things here referred to, and many others of the like Sort, in Crouche’s or Saxby’s Book of Rates.]”

      It is your Confutations that are imaginary.
      Of all people on earth you have least reason to complain, but complain you will. No sooner is “one Recital of imaginary Grievances silenced and confuted” than another appears. Your last one is that this tax is inexpedient, ill timed, ill

      All these Objections were only to show, how unequal the Parliament was to the Business of Taxing the Colonies if the Right had been with them, from their Ignorance of Circumstances and Abilities &c.
      digested, and unrelated to the colonists’ ability to pay. This objection would be unnecessary if you had succeeded in showing, as you have not, that the tax was illegal. But, as you were probably dissatisfied yourself

      We see in you abundance of Self Conceit, but no convincing Argument.
      with the legal argument, “and must have seen abundant Reason before this Time to have altered your former hasty, and rash Opinion,” I will debate the question of expediency. You cannot claim that you are too poor to pay after

      This should be a Caution to Americans how they indulge for the future in British Luxuries. See here British Generosity! The People who have made you poor by their worthless I mean useless Commodities, would now make you poorer by Taxing you: And from the very Inability you have brought on yourselves by a Partiality for their Fashions and Modes of Living, of which they have had the whole Profit, would now urge your Ability to pay the Taxes they are pleas’d to impose. Reject then their Commerce as well as their pretended Power of Taxing. Be frugal and industrious, and you will be free. The Luxury of your Tables, which could be known to the English only by your hospitably entertaining, is by these grateful Guests now made a Charge against you, and given as a Reason for taxing you.
      having given us “such displays of your growing Riches and increasing Magnificence, as perhaps never any People did in the same Space of Time.” Remember how I expostulated with your father on the tremendous increase of American luxury. He attributed it to the growing wealth of the country, and told me to suit my wares to my customers’ tastes. He and then you ordered richer and richer goods of all sorts. Have you now put them aside? Have you given up concerts and plays and gambling and horse races? “And is the Luxury of your Tables, and the Variety and Profusion of your Wines and Liquors quite banished from among you?” You must answer these questions before pleading that the tax is excessive. Even if you were poor, which you are not by comparison with thirty years ago, it may be that we are relatively poorer. In that case which people can better bear the tax burden?

      I have heard, Mr. Dean, that you have studied Political Arithmetick more than Divinity, but by this Sample of it I fear to very little purpose. If personal Service were the Matter in Question, out of so many Millions of Souls so many Men might be expected, whether here or in America. But when raising Money is the Question, It is not the Number of Souls but the Wealth in Possession, that shows the Ability. If we were twice as numerous as the People of England it would not follow that we are half as able. There are Numbers of single Estates in England each worth a hundred of the best [of] ours in N A. The City of London alone is worth all the Provinces of N. America.
      Assume “that you are two Millions of Souls: … that the Public Debt of the several Provinces amounts to about 800,000 Sterling: and … that were this general Debt equally divided among the two Millions, each Individual would owe about the Value of Eight Shillings. Thus stands the Account on one side. Now we in Britain are reckoned to be about Eight Millions of Souls; and we owe almost One hundred and forty-four Millions of Money: which Debt, were it equally divided among us, would throw a Burthen upon each Person of about £18 Sterling. This then being the State of the Case … would it be High-Treason in us to demand of you, who owe so little, to contribute equally with ourselves,

      This Lie is forever repeated by these Writers.
      who owe so much, towards the public Expences;—and such Expences too as you were the Cause of creating? … Surely no:—And yet, my gentle Friend, we do not so much as ask you to

      The Colonies have ever been willing and ready to contribute in Proportion to their Ability, and have done it in various Ways.
      contribute equally with ourselves, we only demand, that you would contribute something.” In other words £100,000, the most that the stamp duty can amount to, which comes to a

      Blush for Shame at your own Ignorance Mr. Dean, who do not know that the Colonies have Taxes and heavy ones of their own to pay, to support their own Civil and military Establishments! and that the Shilling should not be reckon’d upon Heads, but upon Pounds. There never was a sillier Argument.
      shilling a person. “Blush! blush for shame at your perverse and scandalous Behaviour!”

    Perhaps you will say—and it is all that is left for you to say—that you have other taxes of your own to pay. Undoubtedly you have, but so have we, many others “besides those which … are to be accounted for at the Exchequer. …

      And have we not all these Taxes too, as well as you, and our Provincial or Public Taxes besides? And over and above, have we not new Roads to make, new Bridges to build, Churches and Colleges to found, and a Number of other Things to do that your Fathers have done for you and which you inherit from them, but which we are oblig’d to pay for out of our present Labour?
      Witness our County Taxes, Militia Taxes, Poor Taxes, Vagrant Taxes, High Road and Turnpike Taxes, Watch Taxes, Lamps and Scavenger Taxes, &c. &c. &c.—all of them as numerous and as burthensome as any that you can mention. And yet with all this Burthen, yea, with an additional Weight of a National Debt of £18 Sterling per Head,—we require of each of you to

      How fond he is of this One Shilling and twenty!
      contribute only One Shilling to every Twenty from each of us!—yes; and this Shilling too to be spent in your own Country, for the Support of your

      Who has desired this of you, and who can trust you to lay it out? If you are thus to provide for our Civil and military Establishments, what use will there afterwards be for our Assemblies?
      own Civil and Military Establishments;—together with many Shillings drawn from us for the same Purpose.—Alas! had you been in our

      No. We will pay nothing on Compulsion.
      Situation, and we in yours, would you have been content with our paying so small, so inconsiderable a Share of the Public Expences?”

      The Americans never brought Riots as Arguments. It is unjust to charge two or three Riots in particular Places upon all America. Look for Arguments in the Petitions and Remonstrances of the Assemblies, who detest Riots, of which there are ten in England for one in America.
      You are the world’s most unfortunate people in your handling of this controversy: the way you prove your inability to pay is “by breaking forth into Riots and Insurrections, and by committing every kind of Violence, that can cause Trade to stagnate, and Industry to cease. And is this the Method … to make the World believe, that you are a poor People? Is this the Proof you bring, that the Stamp Duty is a burthen too heavy for you to bear? Surely, if you had really

      How impudent it is to insinuate that the Americans chose no other Medium.
      intended our Conviction you would have chosen some other Medium.” If you are in fact poor, you are taking the best way to make yourselves poorer. For if “you can still afford to idle away your Time, and to waste Days, and Weeks, in Outrages and Uproars,” you are demonstrating your prodigality and extravagance.

      When? Where?

      Defence of your Trade in America.
      The stamp duty, despite what you say, is neither unfair, unduly burthensome, nor badly timed. In the recent past you were draining us dry to pay for our fleets and armies “acting in Defence of America,” and at the same time our blood was being sucked by the extortionate demands of “your Jobbers and Contractors.” Meanwhile you were growing rich by “continually acting the double Part either of Trade, or War, of Smuggling, or Privateering, according to the Prospect of greater Gain.” While we were

      Your Jobbers and Contractors if you please. We had none of those dainty Morsels.

      Is the War we made on your Enemies then among our Offences?

      An infamous Lie! They always have warlike Stores cheaper than ours: Our Supplying them with Provisions was a Cry only to found an Embargo on for the Benefit of English Contractors, that they might buy our Provisions cheaper. All this Page is Falshood and Misrepresentation. Money was actually much scarcer in the Colonies after the War than before. This is a Fact known to all that know any thing of them.
      striving to end the war you were prolonging it, “and were supplying our enemies with all Manner of Provisions, and all Sorts of warlike Stores for that Purpose. Nay; because forsooth a Part of these ill-gotten Riches were laid out in English Manufactures … your Advocates and Authors trumpeted about the prodigious Profits of this North American Trade;—not considering, or rather not willing that we should consider, that while a few Individuals were getting Thousands, the Public was spending Millions.”

      Infamous Lie!
      If you believe that the tax was ill timed because Britain was “able to bear the additional Load, which you had brought upon us,” you are completely mistaken: we are not able, even if we were willing, to bear further taxation. “The Expenses of America must be borne by the Americans in some Form. …”

      Undoubtedly. We don’t desire you to bear our Expences.

      It seems a prevailing Opinion in England, that Fear of their French Neighbours would have kept the Colonies in Obedience to the Parliament; and that if the French Power had not been subdu’d, no Opposition would have been made to the Stamp Act. A very groundless Notion. On the contrary, Had the French Power continued, to which the Americans might have had Recourse in Case of Oppression from Parliament, Parliament would not have dared to oppress them. It was the Employment of 50,000 Men at Land, and a Fleet at the Coast, five Years to subdue the French only. Half the Land Army were Provincials. Suppose the British 25000 had acted by themselves with all the Colonies against them: what time would it have taken to subdue the whole?
      But perhaps you mean that the act was ill timed because it was made “when neither the French, nor Indians were in your Rear to frighten, nor the English Fleets and Armies on your Front to force you to a Compliance. Perhaps this was your real Meaning: and if it was, it must be confessed, that in that Sense, the late Act was not well-timed; and that a much properer Season might have been chosen. For had the Law been made five or six years

      It is wonderful whence the English drew this Notion! The Americans know nothing of it.
      before, when you were moving Heaven and Earth with your Cries and Lamentations; not a Tongue would then have uttered a Word against it. …” Even the Americans would then have obeyed

      The Protection was mutual.
      Britain “in Return for her kind and generous Protection.”

      Not from the Beginnings. Look below at your List of Acts. The first of them is in the 12 of Cha. II. Threescore Years after the Beginning of Settlements in America.
      Your real grievance is not the Stamp Act but Britain’s revival of trade restrictions. “The same Restrictions have been the standing Rules of government from the Beginning; though not enforced at all Times with equal Strictness.”

      False.
      [Footnote: All European colonial powers have attempted by legislation to confine colonial trade to the mother country “ever since the Discovery of America.” A list follows of British statutes for that purpose.] “During the late War, you Americans could not import the Manufactures of other Nations (which it is your constant Aim to do, and the aim of the Mother Country

      An absolute Lie!

      More conveniently if we had lik’d them. But the Truth is, that Foreign Manufactures are not to the Taste of the Americans.
      always to prevent), so conveniently as you can in Times of Peace: and therefore, there was no Need of watching you so narrowly, as far as

      Not a single Manufacture of France, except Brandy if that be one, ever used in America.
      that Branch of Trade was concerned. But immediately upon the Peace, the various Manufactures of Europe, particularly those of France, which could not find Vent before, were spread, as it were,

      A vile Lie.
      over all your Colonies, to the prodigious Detriment of your Mother Country.” This caused the revival of trade restrictions. If their administration is faulty, it will be improved; but the American wants more. “He will ever complain and smuggle, and smuggle and complain, till all Restraints are removed, and till he can both buy and sell … wheresoever he pleases.”

      Infinitely more Smuggling in England! Not a Member of Parliament that has not smuggled Goods on his Wrists.

      They are Laws in the Kingdom.
      These restraints, nevertheless, will remain. “They are the standing Laws of the Kingdom. … In short, while you are a Colony, you must be subordinate to the Mother Country. These are the Terms and Conditions, on which you were permitted to make your first Settlements: they are the Terms and Conditions, on which alone you can be entitled to the Assistance and Protection of Great

      To the King only.

      Ignorance!

      By suffering us to enjoin our Rights, you may expect our Assistance, and not otherwise.

      Not at all to promote our Interests, but your own. See p. 23, 24, 25 [above, pp. 363–6].
      Britain. …” You ought to have restrictions on your trade in order to promote our interest, because we have restrictions on our trade in order to promote yours. Do not expect, therefore, that the present administration will long connive at your disobedience; they will have to enforce the law.

      Another infamous Lie!
      “Many among you are sorely concerned, That they cannot pay their British Debts with an American sponge. This is an intolerable

      Who proposed this, you lying Villain!
      Grievance: and … you have spoken out, and proposed an open Association against paying your

      Had the French or Spaniards rais’d such a Lie on you, what Name would you have given them?
      just Debts.” Had our debtors, French or Spanish, proposed this, “what Name would you have given to such Proceedings?”

      We were always distinct separate States under the Same Sovereign.
      You resent the sovereignty of Great Britain. “For you want to be independent: You wish to be an Empire by itself, and to be no longer the Province of another. This Spirit … is visible in all your Speeches, and all your Writings, even

      A silly Speech Mr. Dean has made for us.
      when you take some Pains to disguise it. ‘What! an Island! A Spot such as this to command the great and mighty Continent of North America! Preposterous!’” Let us no longer be subjected to the paltry Kingdom of Great Britain, you say, but let the seat of empire be transferred to Great America.

      Your Thought, Mr. Dean, avails little against Fact. On the Contrary, It is you English that endeavour by every kind of Outrage and Insult to drive us to Extremities. Witness your Troops quarter’d upon us, Your Dissolution of our Assemblies, &c &c &c
      These extravagant conceits are founded on calculations which “I think … both false and absurd.” But the question is what we are going to do with you before you become as formidable as your dreams. “You endeavour, with all your Might, to drive us to Extremities. For no Kind of Outrage, or Insult is omitted … and you do not seem at all disposed to leave Room for an Accommodation.” Only if we recant will you acknowledge the power of Parliament, which

      We desire neither.
      means acknowledging “that we have a Right and a Power to give you Bounties, and to pay your Expences;—but no other.”

      And who did little or nothing without ’em: A ridiculous Imagination of the Author’s own Head! A Silly Lie! No such Boast was ever made.
      We have three choices: to coerce you, to procrastinate, or to give you up entirely. The first would not be difficult; an American mob would be no match for British officers and soldiers, “who passed several Campaigns with your Provincials in America,” and took their measure. We have faith in our troops, despite some of your friends here and “their Insinuations of the Feasibility of corrupting his Majesty’s Forces … by Means of large Bribes, or double Pay.” You say you are poor and cannot pay your debts, in other words, while “you boast of the scandalous Use which you intend to make of your Riches.”

      Here appears some Sense.
      I am, however, opposed to military operations, for how would conquering you benefit us? We might keep ships on your coast, and an army of customs officers to hunt down smugglers; but all this would only “sharpen your Wits, which are pretty sharp already, to elude our Searches, and to bribe and corrupt our Officers.” We might in the end force you to buy twenty or thirty thousand pounds’ worth of our goods at a cost for enforcement of two or three hundred thousand.

      Infamous Scandal, without the least Foundation. The Merchants never receiv’d better Payment of the Debts, than during the Suspension of the Trade.
      Procrastinating is no solution, for it would only strengthen your opposition, as would any appearance of yielding to your demands. If the Stamp Act were suspended for the benefit of British merchants, who are in the pitiable position of having entrusted you with hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of goods, they would find that such indulgence had merely confirmed you in refusing to pay your debts to them. For you demand repeal, not suspension,

      Never any Such Justification was offered by any American whatever that I can hear of.
      of the act. “Consequently if you think you could justify the Non-payment of your Debts, till a Repeal took place; you certainly can justify the Suspension of the Payment during the Suspension of the Act.” Shall we, then, repeal the act “and maintain you as we have hitherto done?” Or shall we let you go unless you are willing to be governed by the same laws we are, and to “pay something towards maintaining yourselves?

      Never!

      The Impudence of this Language to Colonies who have ever maintained themselves is astonishing! Except the late attempted Colonies of Nova Scotia and Georgia, No Colony ever received Maintenance in any Shape from Britain: And the Grants to those Colonies were mere Jobbs for the Benefit of ministerial Favourites: English or Scotchmen.
      “The first, it is certain we can not do; and therefore the next Point to be considered is (which is also the third Proposal) Whether we are to give you entirely up?—and after having

      Throughout all America, English Debts are more easily recovered than in England, the Process being shorter and less expensive, and Lands subject to Execution for the Payment of Debts. Evidence taken ex parte in England to prove a Debt is allowed in their Courts; and during the whole Dispute there was not one single Instance of any English Merchants’ meeting with the least Obstruction in any Process or Suit commenced there for that purpose. I defy this lying Priest to mention one.
      obliged you to pay your just Debts, whether we are to have no farther Connection with you, as a dependent State, or Colony.”

      In order to judge this matter properly, we must consider the prospects before us and before the colonies. “Behold therefore a Political Portrait of the Mother Country;—a mighty Nation under one Government of a King and Parliament,—firmly resolved not to repeal the Act, but to give it

      It did indeed execute itself. It was Felo de se, before the Parliament repeal’d it.
      time to execute itself, … determined to protect and cherish those Colonies, which will return

      This was the Dean’s wise Proposal. He at least, thought it wise. The Parliament thought otherwise.
      to their Allegiance within a limited Time (suppose Twelve or Eighteen Months)—and as determined to compel the obstinate Revolters to pay their Debts,—and then to cast them off. …”

      We have no Use for Logwood but to remit it for your Fineries. We join’d in conquering the Bay of St. L. and its Dependencies, won’t you allow us some Share? The Sugar Islands, if you wont allow us to trade with them, perhaps you will allow them to trade with us; or do you intend to starve them? Pray keep your Bounties, and let us hear no more of them. And your Troops, who never protected us against the Savages, nor are they fit for such Service. And the £300,000 which you seem to think so much clear Profit to us, when in fact, they never spend a Penny among us but they have for it from us a Penny’s worth. The Manufactures they buy are brought from you, the Provisions we could, as we always did, sell elsewhere for as much Money.
      In America there would then be a variety of small colonies, jealous of each other and unable to agree. “By being severed from the British Empire, you will be excluded from cutting Logwood in the Bays of Campeachy and Honduras,—from fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland, on the Coasts of Labrador, or in the Bay of St. Laurence,—from trading (except by Stealth) with the Sugar Islands, or with the British Colonies in any Part of the Globe. You will also lose all the Bounties upon the Importation of your Goods into Great Britain. … You will lose the Remittance of £300,000 a Year to pay your Troops;

      You know your clear’d Road would do that.
      and you will lose the Benefit of these Troops to protect you against the Incursions of the much injured and exasperated Savages. …” If you have trouble with foreign powers, no one will assist

      Holland, France, and Spain, would all be glad of our Custom. And pleas’d to see the Separation.
      you; “Holland, France, and Spain, will look upon you with an evil Eye, … lest such an Example should infect their own Colonies. …

      Oho! Then you will still trade with us! but can that be without our Trading with you? And how can you buy our Oil if we catch no Whales?
      We in Britain shall still retain the greatest Part of your European Trade; because we shall give a better Price for many of your Commodities than you can have any where else: and we shall sell to you several of our Manufactures, especially in the Woollen, Stuff, and Metal Way, on cheaper Terms.”

      Just as they do in England.
      Your internal state will be lamentable, with disputes between colonies and between factions within each. “The Leaders of your Parties will then be setting all their Engines to work, to make Fools become the Dupes of Knaves. …” Your people will be borne down by taxes and loss of trade, “and instead of having Troops to defend them,

      To oppress, insult and murder them, as at Boston!

      These Evils are all imaginations of the Author. The same were predicted to the Netherlands, but have never yet happened. But suppose all of them together, and many more, it would be better to bear them than submit to Parliamentary Taxation: We might still have something we could call our own: But under the Power claim’d by Parliament we have not a single Sixpence.
       … they must defend themselves, and pay themselves.” Soldiers will be needed for defense against Indians and against neighbors, and fleets as well. All these burdens will soon disillusion the people and open their eyes until, surfeited with republicanism, they will petition for reunion with the mother country.

      “And you, my Boy, after you have played the Hero, and spoke all your fine Speeches, … perhaps even you may awake out of your present political Trance, and become a reasonable Man at last.”

      The Author of this Pamphlet Dean Tucker, has always been haunted with the Fear of the Seat of Government being soon to be removed to America. He has in his Tracts on Commerce some just Notions in Matters of Trade and Police, mix’d with many wild chimerical Fancies, totally impracticable. He once proposed as a Defence of the Colonies to clear the Woods for the Width of a Mile all along behind them, that the Indians might not be able to cross the cleared Part without being seen; forgetting that there is a Night in every 24 Hours.


Title: Marginalia in [Matthew Wheelock], Reflections Moral and Political, [1770?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

This is the true political Idea, that every Writer on these Subjects should have in View. Most of them think only of the good of a Part, Britain.
The writer lives in the country, and has not kept up with the pamphlet controversy on the American question; he may therefore be repeating inadvertently some ideas of others. “The good of the whole British empire is what he aims at: the colonies of course must come into consideration; which has obliged him to hasten his work, that it may be printed before the parliament decides what shall be done in regard to them.”

  In what Degree?
  Members of the House of Commons represent the public at large, not their particular constituencies. “We may conceive them to be (in a certain degree) the representatives and guardians

Who are British Commoners? Are the American Colonists such?
of all British commoners, wheresoever dispersed. It is indeed to be hoped that …

Why don’t you set about it?
a better mode of election may be established to make the representation more equal,” but until then the authority of the Commons must be upheld.

The Difference is not so great as may be imagined. Happiness is more generally and equally diffus’d among Savages than in our civiliz’d Societies. No European who has once tasted Savage Life, can afterwards bear to live in our Societies. The Care and Labour of providing for artificial and fashionable Wants, the Sight of so many Rich wallowing in superfluous Plenty, whereby so many are kept poor distress’d by Want: The Insolence of Office, the Snares and Plagues of Law, the Restraints of Custom, all contribute to disgust them with what we call civil Society.
  In the present disputes about liberty, it is important to understand the meaning of the word. The benefits we derive from society are apparent only when we lose them, but reflection will show us “the happiness we enjoy beyond what is attainable by solitary savages.” The savage is exposed to continual physical dangers to himself and his family. Society protects a man from these, and he in return owes it obedience. He is not free to pursue his own quarrels, but must submit them to the power that society has appointed for arbitrating differences. That power is in part legal but in greater part moral, for the citizens’ sense of morality is what makes the legal system operate. Liberty itself can operate only within the limits that morality prescribes.

  A vague Word.
  “This parliament and ministry have been vilified by all means possible, because they have supported the pre-eminency of Great Britain over

Why should you oblige those that never were unwilling? Only return to the ancient Method of Requisition, and you would have their Contributions as usual.
her colonies, and would oblige them to contribute to the public expence, which lies at present on Great Britain. The colonists do not approve of this, and threaten us with the loss of trade, if

This Author decides before he examines.
  What ancient Laws? Probably Magna Charta, the Bill of Rights, Petition of Right, &c. This Author supposes the Colonists want a new Parliament in order to have the Duties taken off. He is mistaken. They did petition; they were not heard, and they will petition no more. They have taken their Measures. Keep up your Duties, if you please; they will not pay them, because they will not use the Commodities. And because they think you use them ill in laying such Duties, they will manufacture for themselves. They now find they gain and save infinitely more by your Continuing the Duties, than they should by your repealing them.
their extravagant and unjust demands of exemption from parliamentary taxations, are not complied with.” British traders are alarmed, and the colonists fan their fears “by applying the words of ancient laws to their own case,” to which those laws are irrelevant.

  Because the present Parliament has resolved to assert its authority over all British subjects, “they (the colonists and traders) cannot expect to carry their point whilst this parliament subsists; they, therefore, desire a new one; in which they hope to get several of their friends elected, in order to allow the colonists to do as they please. …”

  Merchants and manufacturers have petitioned for the dissolution of Parliament, and to obtain the support of the landed interest have pretended that the ground of their petitions was the expulsion of Wilkes. In fact they are trying to secure the election of a new Parliament that will repeal the duties so obnoxious to the Americans. The latter rest their case on what they call the spirit of the constitution. They acknowledge the King personally, but not “as

He is the executive Power of Great Britain in Great Britain. In the Colonies he is the Executive Power of the Colonies; i.e. in each respectively.
the executive power of Great Britain. They allow, that Great Britain has been so generous as to spend an infinite quantity

This is a most iniquitous Account trump’d up against the Colonies. It might with more Propriety be brought against the Clothiers of Yorkshire and the West, or the Smiths and Cutlers of Sheffield, or the Buttonmakers of Birmingham. Was it not to secure and extend their Trade and the Vent for their Manufactures, that you fought in America; and did not the Colonies raise and maintain Man for Man with you to fight these Battles? They bring no Account against you for the Blood and Treasure they have spent in your Wars: Then be silent on this Head if you are wise; for whenever the Account comes to be settled you will be found in Debt, the Ballance will be against you.
of blood and treasure, to procure them secure settlements in America, and to supply them with great numbers of its useful and industrious families [interlined by Franklin: and all your Rogues]; in return for which, the colonists have taken such manufactures from Great Britain, as they wanted. …” Now they will take no more unless Britain allows them independence of Parliament in one essential point, taxation.

  But the colonists, like the King’s subjects in Great Britain, hold their lands from the crown.

Who is a British Subject? Is every Subject of the King such? Then Hanoverians are British Subjects.
“Whatever British subject holds lands of the King, then holds them for the benefit of the

This may be the Case in Britain. It is not in Ireland. The Irish are Irish Subjects.
British public in the first place; in the second place, he holds them according to the political situation of the country in which the said lands lie. The Irish are British subjects;” they have settled revenues on the crown, and no more is

That is, it usurps wherever it can.
required except in emergencies. “But the British legislature extends itself to Ireland, when it sees cause.” The Irish have the same liberties as the British, but their land and trade depend “on the

The Superior Power in Ireland is the King and their Parliament.
superior power.

Great Britain as a Nation had no such Views. The Parliament was not at any Expence gave no Directions were not so much as consulted about the Settlement of Colonies before Geo. II’s time.
  “The chief view of Great Britain in establishing colonies in North America was, to promote trade with the Indians; and to furnish us with several articles of commerce which America produces. The extension of dominion … was not the national scheme. …”

  The colonists claim that dependence is slavery, but if that is true there can scarcely be any liberty; for all are dependent on authority.

British Empire, a vague Expression. All these Writers (almost all) confound themselves and Readers with the Idea that the British Empire is but ONE State; not considering or knowing that it consists of many States under one Sovereign. As of Great Britain (formerly two, E[nglan]d and Scotland, Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey) every Colony, Hanover, Zell, &c.
“In the British empire some power must lead, and the rest of the nation

This is the case in every single State.
follow. If the law of nations allows men to treat

  The British Nation had no original Property in the Country of America. It was purchas’d by the first Colonists of the Natives, the only Owners.
       The Colonies not created by Britain, but by the Colonists themselves.
       The People that went cost the Nation nothing to send them there; they went at their own Expence Nova S[cotia] and Georgia excepted and to these were sent wrong People who dy’d or went away. Why then have you accepted their General Grants heretofore?
  a conquered country as they please, … the right of original property, the creation of a colony, and the supplying it with people, must give a much better title to jurisdiction and superiority. The independency affected by the Americans, is what our old laws would give a very bad name to; the parliament will tell us what to call it now.”

  American arguments rest on the false premise that their assemblies alone have the right to grant or refuse supplies for the service of the state. To grant money for the public service of the colony, “seems the extent of the assemblies authority.” Parliament has the right to grant money for the empire at large. It is implausible

They have agreed heretofore, why not again? How many Wars have they join’d in with Britain? Did ever any of them refuse?
that widely separated assemblies “should ever agree in one measure of government, and if they were not unanimous, what must be done with those who dissented?—such a society could

Suppose there were Truth in this, which there is not, Would you argue a Right to enslave us, from an Inconvenience to yourselves if you had not such Right? The same Argument was just as good for the Parliament of England taxing and making Laws for Scotland before the Union.
hardly subsist a twelve-month.”

  Dependencies. By this Word you assume what is not granted; and all that follows is therefore unfounded.
  If reason then requires that one power should preside and the rest obey, it follows that the Americans, like the Irish, should not be represented in Parliament. “All dependencies have some peculiar interests of their own,” which Parliament should reconcile for the good of the whole. The interest of one dependency often

How came you then to admit Wales, the Principality of Chester, Bishoprick of Durham, Scotland, &c.?
conflicts with that of another; “if they had each votes in Parliament, they would be both parties and judges; which is against reason and order.”

  The colonists fear oppression by Parliament.

A very poor Security indeed. What would these Apprehensions signify? Many here have long had them already: but is our Case thereby mended? If we should complain of unequal Taxation, we should be told that People in England are unequally taxed, Scotland does not pay its Share, &c., just as when we complain of not being represented we are told that many People in England are not represented. Thus you argue from a Wrong to an Injury. But how can we trust you, we who live at such a Distance from you; when you are not just to one another?
But they cannot have “better security in the nature of things, than that a parliament, which should unjustly attack your liberty, would give immediate apprehensions to your fellow subjects at home. Besides, the amount of the taxes may be fixed in proportion to what is paid at home, and the manner of raising it be left to the colonists under certain restrictions; but it is not the mode of taxation that the colonists complain of, it is the right itself they contest.

  “According to their notions, Great Britain may provide and protect establishments of her subjects in foreign parts, for the advantage of the said subjects personally, but cannot make

She may if she thinks fit. But she is not to apply to her own Advantage unjustly foreign Settlements made by others.
any foreign settlement for her own advantage, nor extend her jurisdiction beyond the island of Great Britain.

  “Our old original laws, indeed, were calculated

Adopted by them. No Power to make Laws for Wales till it was represented.
for England …; as our dominions encreased, our law was extended in like manner into Ireland and Wales. When we had establishments in more southern latitudes, the same

    A great Mistake; no British Law in force in the Colonies but what they voluntarily adopt. Witness the Law of Tythes, Game Laws, Marriage Acts, &c.
    law continued, and still continues in force, with such additions and variations, as … required, for the publick good. These alterations … were intended for the benefit of the colonists, on the supposition, that they were true and loyal subjects of Great Britain. “They are now on as secure a footing, as the subjects who dwell in England: what injustice is there then in subjecting them now to

    The People of Great Britain are themselves Subjects to the King. The Subjects of one Part of the King’s Dominions are not Sovereigns over the King’s Subjects in another Part of his Dominions. G. B[ritai]n has no Subjects.

You forget the Separate Taxes they pay at home.
  proportionate taxes, with the rest of their fellow subjects? The injustice, indeed, would be to all the British subjects at home, if the Americans were

This was never the Case.
suffered to remain untaxed,” because those at home would have to make up the difference.

The Ignorance of the Parliament in these and many other Points shows how improperly they would undertake to tax us.
  Proportionate taxes would take into account the differences in the produce of the various colonies, the expense of production, and the price of the necessities of life. In general the products of the northern colonies are less precarious and costly than those of the southern. The way of life also varies. In the north, where large families are common, “few can afford to give their children a liberal education; after a short schooling, they put them either into a mercantile way, or upon a piece of land (mostly uncultivated). As they have little distinction among

How ignorant this Writer is! There are no less than eight Universities in the Northern Colonies viz. Cambridge in New England, Rhodeisland Do. Newhaven Do. New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Williamsburg in Virginia, and Georgia.

As learned and polite, and more so, than any part of Britain, for their Numbers.
them, except what arises from wealth, learning and politeness of manners must not be expected: they are very quick in discerning what regards their own particular interest, … and generally

Never without Cause.
suspect that their governors, and people in power,

Another Instance of his Ignorance. To stand Candidate for being an Assemblyman is not the Practice in New-England.
enrich themselves clandestinely out of the publick money: in their elections of assembly-men, it is not the sensible and honest man, who succeeds by telling them candidly the truth, … it is the violent, noisy candidate, who flatters their prejudices, and abuses the governor, that carries

No Gentleman that knew the Country would say this.
the day. … The character of a gentleman is rare to be met with in these provinces. … A real gentleman

A British Citizen in his Idea is a Colonist that thinks the Parliament has a Right to tax him. There is no such Man.
(in which title that of a good British citizen is included) must either hold his tongue, or speak his sentiments at the risk of being insulted.”

No Meaning. Or none to his Purpose.
  Query. When and where? The Common Expression is the Mother Country.

  In Maryland and Virginia the planters give their children a better education, and the gentry have more influence. But their power over slaves makes them haughty, and they sometimes forget that they are British subjects. Their sense of security, no doubt, makes the Virginians talk of Britain as a sister state.

  When did Gr. Britain ever afford any Assistance to Carolina? Never were any English Troops there before the last War.
  The Carolinas and Georgia, threatened by their slaves, the Indians, and the Spanish, are less secure and depend more on “the assistance of Great Britain and the neighbouring colonies.”

  Would you tax these People beyond those Duties?
  The colonists in the Sugar Islands are wealthier and better-mannered. Their control of their slaves, and of “the revenues arising from the duty on sugar,” make them self-important. Yet they realize their dependence on Great Britain for protection against their own slaves, who

The poor Creatures know no more of the Existence of such Strength than of a Strength in the Moon.
are kept in subservience only by “the terror of the European strength, which keeps the slaves from rising; we see them now and then attempt it, even though they know there is such assistance in reserve; what would they not do, if the colonists …had no other defense than their own persons?”

Quite ignorant of these Countries.
  Never were apprehensive of the Indians, nor much of the French. Are as much expos’d to Danger from the Indians now as ever.
  Neither the Common People nor any others can have much conception that those Limitations are for the good of the whole, which they see evidently calculated for the Benefit of Great Britain only, and to the Damage of the Colonies.
  The colonists are divided in their attitudes toward Britain. Some live only to make their fortunes and retire to the British Isles, which they regard as home; this is true in general in the West Indies, Georgia, and the Carolinas. The colonists from Virginia northward, on the other hand, live more affluently than they could in Britain, do not now fear the French or the Indians, “and consider their plantations as their home, and the people of Great Britain as a check upon them, who limit their trade in favour of the good of the whole, of which the common people have little conception.”

  Take care then how you use us; if your Strength depends on your Union with us.
  All the colonists, because they depend on their exports, are associated with merchants in Britain, who fear to be put out of business if the tumults in America ruin trade. “But should the parliament give way to the pretensions of the Americans, … the strength and dignity of Great Britain, her trade and colonies, would all go to ruin; for, First, the national credit would be immediately affected, as then Great Britain alone

Is it not already so? Would it be responsible for more? Does it desire to be responsible for the Irish and Colony
would become responsible for the national debt. Our estimation among all the European powers would sink of course; the colonists (who have all the necessaries for shipping) would presently

Debts also? They are dependent only on the King.
interfere with our trade; for if they are independant in one point, why not in another? The revenue

They will lessen if you use the Colonies unjustly.
of the customs at home would lessen, which deficiency must be made up by taxes; this would

Ignorant of the Effect of Taxes. They will not make Manufactures too high for foreign Markets.
raise the price of our manufactures too high for the markets; the manufacturers being unemployed would run to America, and the revenue of excise diminish of course. …

You need not be concern’d for them. You are too good.
  “The colonists themselves would not long enjoy their independence.” They could not form a single

Very easily. Tis but a Weeks Voyage from the Extremities to the central Colonies.
state on the British model, because representatives from such a large territory could scarcely attend a central legislature. Could they have a federal union like the Dutch or Swiss? Scarcely, because the constituent parts differ so much in their “productions and interests.” Those parts would soon be at loggerheads, and the weaker ones, lacking the effrontery to apply for help to Great Britain, “would naturally call in the

Strange, that differing in Productions, should be a Reason of their not being capable of Agreeing in Government.

Silly enough!
French or Spaniards to their assistance.”

What has his Consent to do with their Resolutions? They know he dare not assent to them whatever his Judgment may be.
  Most Americans are doubtless not thinking of independence, but events are moving in that direction. A colonial assembly, without the consent of the governor, communicates its resolutions to other assemblies, which looks like confederacy. If Parliament passes legislation that the Americans disapprove of, “the importation of British manufactures is prohibited: I will not suppose by connivance of the assembly, but have the assemblies

This which he calls a Prohibition, is no more than a Resolution of any Colonist to buy no more British Superfluities till his Grievances are redress’d, and he is allow’d the Enjoyment of his Liberties. He then persuades others to take the same Resolution. That’s all.

No!
discountenanced these proceedings?

  Why should they? Do not British Subjects in Britain contribute what they please? If the Americans have, as they ought to have, all Advantages of British Subjects, why not this among the rest?
Have they done any thing to suppress them? What do the Americans contend for? Only the enjoyment of all advantages of British subjects, for which they will contribute to the public treasury what they please, and Great Britain to pay the rest. Suppose this is not granted, what will the assemblies do next?

  There is no such Dependance. There is only a Connection, of which the King is the common Link.
  “The only reasonable hope the North Americans can have of preserving the British constitution with peace and safety, is their dependance on Great Britain, which is the natural umpire when any differences arise between the colonies: take away that resort, and every colony must decide its

Why not by Mediation, by Arbitration, or by considerate and prudent Agreement? Suppose England and Scotland differ, are they in a better Case?
disputes by the sword. Their division into provinces at present makes

There you hit it.
every colony a little state of itself,” which the governor and assembly can care for better than any central executive and legislature could.

And they will always (probably) continue so.

While connected with Britain they are sure of being engag’d in all her Quarrels and Wars.
  The only danger that threatens the colonies is from Europe, and “whilst they depend on Great Britain” they are sure to be alerted to such danger and protected against it by men-of-war. “A time in all likelihood will come, when the

Then don’t make Enemies of them if you are wise.
colonies in North America shall exceed Great Britain in strength, and consequently have the

You are hastning that time by your Folly.
less occasion for her: it is also likely that in time America will make her own manufactures, and consequently our intercourse will lessen, and perhaps a separation take place by consent,

This Writer seems to imagine the Colonies concern’d in the National Debt. A Notion quite new!
when the national debt is discharged, and when the European and American Britons can be no longer of service to each other, but as friends and allies.”

The farther they extend themselves the less likely to be too populous so as to engage in Manufactures. But no Distance they can go from the Sea will add much by Carriage to the Price of British Goods. The Country is full of Rivers and Lakes: which this Writer seems not to know.
  Agriculture is at present more advantageous for the Americans than manufactures. “But when America is fully peopled, the price of land will encrease: the farther the colonists extend themselves from the sea and great rivers, the dearer our manufactures must come to them, on account of land-carriage: they will then run into manufactures.” There is indeed some manufacturing in Philadelphia, but as soon as the

And then may not other poor People do as they have done?
poor workers accumulate enough money to buy land “they will probably do as others have done before them.”

The Meaning of all this is, The Americans are unable to resist, therefore you may treat them as you please.
  The Americans’ boasts of unanimity and strength to resist are mere bugbears to frighten us. In slave-holding colonies the whites dare not leave their localities, in the others the mob would be no match for British troops, and everywhere the seacoast is open to attack. The colonists’ only hope is to foment discord here, by specious constitutional arguments.

  How does this appear?
    Britain is not his Sovereign, but the King, who remains the same in America.
  A British subject going to America has all the rights that he had at home, and the mother country renders his possessions in America “doubly valuable in point of security.” This increased security does not free him “from the obedience which he owed to Britain originally, and

No such Cause and Condition.
which was the cause and condition of his possessing any lands at all in America. To bring the spirit of the constitution against the general established law, is oversetting all order and government.” That spirit prescribes that all subjects shall be free, whereas the law deprives specific people of their freedom at specific times for the sake of the public good. “To expect perfection in human institutions is absurd: the highest point

  Does this justify any and every Imperfection that can be invented and added to our Constitution? Why did you yourselves not leave our Constitutions as you found them? Why did you aim at making them according to your Ideas, more perfect, by taking away our Rights in order to subject us to Parliamentary Taxation?

The Salus Populi of America as important to the People there as that of Britain here.
that we know in legislation is salus populi supprema lex esto.” The colonial charters were acts of the crown, fixing its claims to the soil, “but

The Inhabitants of that Soil owed no Obedience to the British Legislature. Its Jurisdiction did not extend out of the Realm.
could not exempt the colonists from the obedience they owed to the British legislature: if they have retained and claimed the right of British subjects from their first settlement to this time, it is plain they did not look upon themselves as

The Crown stipulated that they should not be Aliens.
aliens.

False in Fact.
In all distresses they have applied to Great Britain as citizens, and have been protected as such. …”

They would never have gone if it had been understood that they were still to remain under the power of the oppressive Laws from which they fled.
Would they have settled in America if their citizenship had not been their protection? Would a

Very easily. They were too poor to make it worth any Nations Trouble to invade them.
settlement, once made, have endured for any length of time on any basis except that it belonged to England? The colonists’ purpose

  This very few was the whole Colony.
in emigrating was to mend their fortunes, “except perhaps a very few Enthusiasts about Boston.” England’s purpose was to encourage the colonies for the good of the whole; no one at that time doubted their allegiance. They were empowered to provide for their own judiciary, defense, and legislation, “subject

  Their Allegiance is still untainted. They owe it to the King, not to the Parliament.

Of the King in England if you please.
however to the controul of England.” They were exposed to the French and Indians, and

All this time, when England being out of Debt could so well have afforded it, Did She ever send any Troops to defend them, or give a Shilling for that Purpose? NOT ONE.
their economy was precarious; it would have been unfair for England, with little or no public debt, to have taxed them at that time. But the last war freed the northern colonies from the danger of the French.

They are diminished ONE HALF, by the increas’d Plenty of Land at Market, thro’ the Conquests.
“Their estates are doubled and tripled in value and security:

Did not America pay half of this, and more? They kept up an equal Number of Troops. They suffer’d immensely by the Embargoes.
the reasons of exempting them from taxes, no longer exist: the expence of the wars which produced these happy events to the Americans, is charged to the publick. There can be no doubt then in equity, that they should now bear a proportionate part in the payment of the debt, since they have more than a proportionate part of the benefit.”

A false Charge.
  Some colonists carry their case further, not only claiming independence of Parliament, but “paying little regard to the crown” when its orders are not to their liking. “If this behaviour arises

Meddle with them at your Peril. No Alteration can be made in them but by Consent of both Parties, the King and the Colonists. By violating them you break the Link that holds those two parts together.
in consequence of their charters, it seems high time to annul or amend them.”

But there may be in different States.
  “There cannot be two equal legislatures in any state.” One must be supreme, the others subordinate. The charters of British cities give the corporations autonomy within their areas, but no right to contest the authority of Parliament.

The Corporations of Britain are within the Realm, therefore within the Jurisdiction of Parliament. The Colonies are without the Realm. Therefore not.

  The British State had no Share in forming and supporting the Colonies, except Georgia and Nova Scotia. And New England had a great share in the latter.
  “It is the essential quality of a province to depend on THAT STATE which formed and supported it.” The colonists like to fancy that they have the same relationship to the mother country that the Flemish provinces had to

The Colonies depend no more on Britain than Hanover does.
Spain, whereas in fact those provinces “depended no more on Spain, than Hanover does on Britain”; the inhabitants were not Spanish subjects. For a province composed of subjects of the state to pretend to equality is “a sort of civil mutiny,” and suggests that the colonists may intend “to withdraw their allegiance.”

    It is great Impudence or Folly in a Man to suppose, that because he is an Englishman every American Owes him Allegiance. If every Englishman is not a Sovereign over every American, neither can he communicate such Sovereignty to another, by chusing him Parliament Man.

  Never.
  “It seems in the present situation of affairs, that either the rights and dignity of Great Britain … must be submitted to the apparent (but not real) interest of the colonies; or the colonies must acknowledge the legislative supremacy of

Their Proportion they always have contributed and more—In the Price of Goods. In the Restraints. In making War for Britain.
Great Britain, and contribute their proportion to the good of the whole; or a rupture must ensue.”

This Wiseacre seems not to know that there are any other Taxes in the World than those impos’d by the King Lords and Commons of G.B.
  Exempting Americans from taxation would create an inextricable dilemma. The prospect of “an exemption from parliamentary taxes” would lead the young to emigrate from Britain, and what would Parliament do then?

    It is very true. To keep People in England by Compulsion, is to make England a Prison, and every Englishman. The Right of Migration is common to all Men, a natural Right. The Colonists us’d that Right, and seated themselves out of the Jurisdiction of Parliament, to avoid being subject to Bishops Courts, Tythes, Church Laws, and other Parts and Statutes of British Law that oppress’d them. Would you now, contrary to the Faith of Charters, bring all those Laws over them again?
    “To let our people go, depopulates the country; to keep them here by compulsion, would diminish the liberty of the subject.

  No.
  “Supposing the Americans acknowledge their dependance,

They never refus’d to contribute their Proportion voluntarily.
and pay their proportion, yet … they encrease fast, and we have certainly no subjects to spare.” England has fewer inhabitants than it had thirty-five years ago; it is of first

Make your own People as easy as you please, but don’t make ours uneasy.
importance to make the populace contented enough to stay in this country.

  [The remainder of the pamphlet, which deals with ways and means of improving the lot of the British at home, has no marginal comments.]


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from John Foxcroft, 14 January 1771
From: Foxcroft, John
To: Franklin, Benjamin

My Dear Friend
Philadelphia Janry: 14th 1771
Yours of Novr. 7th. I have just receiv’d for which you have my sincere thanks. This will be Deliver’d to you by my Brother whom I beg you will take most cordially by the hand as I do assure you that you will find on being well acquainted with him that he’ll merit every Act of Friendship which you will please to conferr upon him, this sudden Voyage is owing to Letters receiv’d by this last packet concerning my Brothers affairs, not one half penny of the Debts due to him having been collected since I left London. His stay will be but for two or three Months no body knows of his Voyage, as there are so many hungary harpies always ready I thought it would be rather dangerous as some of them might have seized on his place during his absence. If you should determine on coming over next Summer he would be extremely happy in taking his passage in the same Ship and I believe he will be able to afford you some small amusement at that Noble game of Chess, which you so deservedly prefer before all others.
I notice what you say about the payment made to Mr. Trevor and will give you Credit accordingly as well as for the £500 which I had off you before I left London. By the first Ship that Sails from this Port for London I will send you the two Barrells of Flour as you desire the best that can be procured; I Am quite happy in what you write me that there seems a disposition to be favourable to this Country for I think nay am sure that nothing can be done on your side of the Water to distress this growing Country but what will fall doubley on themselves at last. Trade is again begining to hold up her head and if not check’d by some Act of the present Parliament I verily believe will return into it’s old Channel and flourish as it did before these late unhappy times, an Act at this time to Encourage and Extend the trade of this Country would be an Act of Grace indeed and worthy of the British Senate, as it would banish even the least Appearance of discontent from this happy Climate, and bury every disagreable thing that’s past in oblivion. And why should it not take place, for surely no sensible Man will attempt to deny that what is of Advantage to America, must be certain gain to the Mother Country for in spight of every resolution to the Contrary it will settle there at last.
I thank you for your very Friendly Answer to Mr. Todd on his communicating what he had heard concerning me, you did not tell him too much, you might safely have answer’d for me, I dare my Accusers (tho’ I imagine they will never appear). Mr. Todd heard from me more than any other Man besides yourself whiles’t in England let my private opinion have been what it would I never committed it to paper, having too many recent Instances before me of what others had suffer’d by A misplaced confidence; I think I know the Quarter from whence the Information came, you may Recollect that I told you of a conversation which happen’d at Messrs. Batson & Co. Bankers between me and one Mr. Blackburn who was formerly Anthony Bacons Clerk but now a New York Merchant who receiv’d the first Account of the New Yorkers breaking through the agreement; the conversation happen’d in consequence of that, when I thought He made rather too free with your Name saying that He had got ample proofs of your being the grand Incendery between the two Countrys and that if it had not been for what you and some others had wrote over no disturbances whatever had happen’d, that their Names were all come over and that probably some of them who held places under the Government would be haul’d over the Coals. I thought He look’d at me as if he would have the Company believe that I was one of the Number, I told Him that I dared to say whatever Letters you had wrote, you would not disown when they made their appearance, and that I imagined it was no more than what every American then in England had done, this Spoke with some warmth Occasion’d Mr. Batson the Banker to say I hope you don’t look upon yourself as an American. I told him yes I did and Gloried in the Name, for that I look’d upon a Good Englishman and a good American to be synonimous terms it being impossible to be one without being the other also; here ended the discourse which I think not impossible may have given rise to the other. Mrs. Foxcroft joins me in Sincere Compliments to yourself and Friends I am as ever your Friend and obliged humble Servant
John Foxcroft