Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Mary Stevenson, [December 1769]
From: Hewson, Mary (Polly) Stevenson
To: Franklin, Benjamin

To Dr. Franklin with a pair of Ruffles Decr / 69
These flowers Dear Sir, can boast no lively bloom,
Nor can regale you with a sweet perfume,
This dreary season no such present yeild’s,
The Trees are naked, unadorn’d the fields,
The Gardens have their sweets and beauty lost
But Love and Gratitude, unchill’d by frost;
Put forth this foliage—poor indeed I own
Yet trust th’intent will for the faults atone.
Altho’ my produce not with nature vies,
I hope to please a friend’s indulgent eye’s,
For you my fancy and my skill I tried
For you my needle with delight I plied
Proud even to add a triffling grace to you
From whom Philosophy and Virtue too
I’ve gain’d—If either can be counted mine
In you they with the clearest lustre shine
My noble Friend this artless line excuse
Nor blame the weakness of your Polly’s muse
The humble gift with kind compliance take
And wear it for the grateful givers sake

NB Dr Franklin to whom these verses


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from [Richard Henry Alexander?] Bennet, [1769?]
From: Bennet, Richard Henry Alexander
To: Franklin, Benjamin

St. James’s Street Tuesday night [1769?]
Mr. Bennet presents his Comp[limen]ts to Doctor Franklin and returns him many thanks for the Honor of his very obliging Present which he esteems infinitely.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from [John] Foxcroft, [1769?]: résumé
From: Foxcroft, John
To: Franklin, Benjamin

[1769? A note in the third person, dated only Friday, asking Franklin to visit him for a game of chess “on his New Invented Table.” A very bad cold has prevented Foxcroft from calling, and the visit would be an act of charity.]


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from W. Masters, [1769?]
From: Masters, W.
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
[1769?]
Though I have not the honour of an intimate acquaintance with you, yet your character of humanity and benevolence, and the intimacy that subsisted between you and my Father, and especially the desire of contributing to the Peace and Happiness of an old Neighbour whom for several Years I have found an honest worthy industrious Man, imboldens me to give you the trouble of a Letter.
A Soldier in the Train has married his Daughter. The Army you know is far from being a School of Virtue. Besides the Miseries and Fatigues to which his Daughter will be exposed by following the Camp or living in Garrison, the old Man is exceedingly distressed at the prospect of his grand Children being brought up in the midst of vice and debauchery. His Son in law is desirous of quiting the Army, but can only be discharged by applying to the Marquis of Granby who is Capt. General. He has got a Petition drawn up but does not know to whom to send it. The Father in law being a poor Man has no acquaintance with Men in Trade; as notwithstanding his poverty I know him to be a deserving Man, I have at his earnest intreaty presumed to inclose the Petition to you, and to request the favour that you would get it presented; which shall be ever acknowledged by Your Friend and humble Servant
W Masters
 Addressed: To / Doctor Benjamin Franklin / Craven Street / London
Endorsed: Mr Masters with Petition of Thos Truck


Title: Marginalia in Good Humour, an Anonymous Pamphlet, [1769?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

This is the first of a series of marginal comments by Franklin on pamphlets that are, at least for the modern reader, of much less interest than the comments themselves. The pamphlets are thus in a different category from the protests in 1766 by members of the House of Lords against the repeal of the Stamp Act, and consequently receive different treatment. The printed original is paraphrased and drastically condensed in the right-hand column, with direct quotation only of words or passages on which Franklin specifically remarked. All italics in this column represent his underlining; the author’s italics and other emphasis have been removed. Gaps in the column, to accommodate the marginalia, do not indicate any break in the paraphrase. Franklin’s comments are printed verbatim in the left-hand column, where italics again are his emphasis.
The importance of these and subsequent marginalia is that they reveal, as nothing else does, Franklin’s private views on the developing Anglo-American controversy, and particularly on its constitutional aspect. He was guarded about expressing himself in letters, which might get into the wrong hands, and even more guarded about what he wrote for the press. In writing for his own eyes the guard was down: he was free to develop his idea that the King’s British subjects had no authority over his other subjects, and that the Parliamentary claim to legislate for Americans was sheer usurpation. This idea was not a new one: it had been growing on him since at least the beginning of 1766. He had hinted at it in his examination before the House of Commons that February, and had touched on it lightly in an article he published two years later. But its implications he preferred to keep to himself, for he knew that they would be utterly unacceptable to the British and even to many Americans. He could not avoid them, however, when he encountered in the pamphlets he was reading the smug and repeated assertion of Parliamentary supremacy. The smugness angered him into responses which, even if equally repetitive, hammered out his opposing assertion.
The dates of his marginalia can be established only conjecturally and by internal evidence. In the present case the most important bit of evidence is his reference to the letters of Governor Bernard. These were first printed in Boston in the spring of 1769, and were reprinted in England by December of that year. We are therefore assigning these comments, according to our usual practice, to the earliest likely date, which is the close of 1769.

      The colonial question engages every one’s attention. Demagogues who wish to bring government into contempt accuse Parliament of exerting lawless power; the colonists deny its right to tax them when they are not represented in it, and they are supported in this by their great champion, who is also the false idol of the British populace, William Pitt. Any well-wisher to the country must regret Pitt’s popularity, for he has used it to fan the flame of sedition.

      They knew the Governor to be, as it afterwards turn’d out, their Enemy and Calumniator in private Letters to Govt. here.How many of their Petitions were rejected on the most trivial Pretences? How ignorant is this Writer of Facts! How many of their Remonstrances were rejected!
      In the colonies trade and commerce are at a standstill, government is defied, and anarchy prevails. In Massachusetts Governor Bernard, faithful to the crown and the rights of Parliament, has shown spirit, understanding, and integrity in dealing with a rancorous Assembly and a furious people.

      Colonial resentment of Britain is passionate and irrational. Even assuming that Parliament exercised an illegal authority in passing the Stamp Act, what then? “Must the Colonies in the first instance, and without waiting the issue of one humble remonstrance, … proceed to an extreme, which nothing but the most contemptuous neglect, and the most resolved tyranny can excuse?” Does such resentment imply subordination? It would have been more becoming to have remonstrated in terms of filial duty, trusting for relief to the world-famous justice and equity of Parliament.

      There never was any Occasion of legal Exemption from what they never had been subject to.
      Parliamentary authority to tax the colonies is in doubt, though not clearly illegal. If it cannot be asserted to the satisfaction of the Americans, “they must give us leave in our turn to except against their demonstrations of legal exemption from it.” The legal question may then be discarded, and the issue settled on the basis of reason and utility.

      Here appears some Sense.
      The colonies have a natural right, stronger than any legal one, to be treated fairly. This right derives from the natural right of all men to equity and justice, and it is indefeasible. Whatever the basis for the authority of a government, it has no right to oppress; for a right to do wrong is a logical absurdity. Hence the colonies are entitled to all the equity and indulgence that Britain can show them.

      Here is the old Mistake of all these Writers. The People of the Mother Country are Subjects not Governors. The King only is sovereign in both Countries.
      This argument, however, applies as much “to the Mother Country as to the Colonies; for it would be ridiculous to suppose, that a people should have a claim to whatever happiness their situation will admit, and that Princes and Governors should be excluded from it. … Great Britain and her Colonies then are to be consider’d as mutually bound to promote

      Right
      one another’s interests. … If this reasoning be just (and I think it cannot be disproved) the Colonies will no longer think it equitable to insist upon Immunities which the people of Great Britain do not enjoy. To claim

      Why not, if. they have a Right to them?

      It is a Right however, and what signifies what Air it has?
      a right of being taxed by their Assemblies only, appears to have too much the air of Independence; and though they are not represented here … would

      The Inhabitants being Freeholders ought to have the same. If they have it not, they are injured. Then rectify what is amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a Justification of more Wrong.
      give them an Immunity beyond the inhabitants of this Island.”

      Why not? As well as Scotland from 45? or rather 61?
      Representation does not depend upon geography: worthy and honorable gentlemen elected from any part of the kingdom can secure the rights to liberty and property of citizens in any other part. Hence the fact that the colonists do not have their own members of Parliament is immaterial. “Could they hope to procure any advantages from 100

      Common Sense, on the contrary, says, that a Body of 100 Votes in Parliament will always be worth the Attention of any Ministry; and the Fear of offending them, will make every Minister cautious of injuring the Rights of their Country, lest they join with his Opposers in Parlt.
      Representatives? Common Sense answers all this in the Negative.” Some sensible Americans insist that their compatriots want no such thing.

      All this Argument of the Interest of Britain and the Colonies being the same is fallacious and unsatisfactory. Partners in Trade have a common Interest, which is the same, the Flourishing of the Partnership Business: But they may moreover have each a separate Interest; and in pursuit of that separate Interest, one of them may endeavour to impose on the other, may cheat him in the Accounts, may draw to himself more than his Share of the Profits, may put upon the other more than an equal Share of the Burthen. Their having a common Interest is no Security against such Injustice. The Landholders of G. Britain have a common Interest, and yet they injure one another in the Inequality of the Land Tax. The Majority in Parliament being favoured in the Proportion will never Consent to do Justice to the Minority, by a more equal Assessment.
      The colonists have virtual representation in Parliament, because its members are concerned with preserving colonial freedom and immunities insofar as these can be reconciled with dependence on the mother country. British and colonial interests are interdependent; Parliament is therefore as solicitous of the second as of the first, because in furthering one it is furthering the other. “The interests of Great Britain and her colonies are the same.” She will always have a parental regard for the Americans, and lay no unnecessary burdens upon them.

      If the Parliament is so knowing and so just, how comes it to restrain Ireland in its Manufactures; America in its Trade? Why may not an Irishman or an American make the same Manufactures and carry them to the same Ports with an Englishman? In many Instances, Britain [has] a selfish Regard to her own Interest in prejudice of the Colonies. America therefore has no Confidence in her Equity.
      The colonists fear to submit to what they regard as an exercise of arbitrary power, lest it become a precedent. They fear, that is, either that the British government is ignorant of colonial interests and hence liable to injure them and, unintentionally, British interests as well, or that the government is in essence arbitrary. But Parliament cannot fail to recognize the identity of interest. If it is acting against both Britain and America, the danger should be as apparent to one as to the other; and it is not apparent.

      Suppose Seats in your House of Commons hereditary, as those of the House of Lords; or suppose the Commons to be nominated by the King, or chosen by the Lords; Could you then rely upon them? If your Members were to be chosen by the People of Ireland, could you then rely upon them? Could you depend upon their Wisdom and Integrity as a Security, the best possible, for your Rights? And wherein is our Case different if the People of Britain chuse Legislators for the People of America?
      The same is true of arbitrary power. “But I can conceive no earthly security better, none indeed so good, as that which depends upon the wisdom and integrity of a British King and Parliament.”

      Whether or not the Stamp Act is a suitable and fair method of taxation may confidently be left to the wisdom of Parliament, which will study the issue and devise a remedy, if needed, for colonial grievances. If the colonists have any virtue left, “they

      There was no Posture of Hostility in America. But Britain put herself in a Posture of Hostility against America; Witness the Landing of Troops in Boston, 1768.
      will blush to be found in a posture of hostility against Great Britain, and will recover from it as expeditiously as they can; there being nothing so inexcusable as enmity to one’s country, no name of infamy half so reproachful, as that of a base and ungrateful Parricide.”

      They want no British troops for that purpose, nor ever did.
      The colonists’ real fear seems to be that they will be saddled with a part of the British national debt. Why not absolve them from this threat in return for an annual contribution of raw materials or manufactures, or a grant of money to maintain troops for colonial defense?

      [The remainder of the pamphlet deals largely with John Wilkes, and has no marginal comments.]


Title: Marginalia in The True Constitutional Means, an Anonymous Pamphlet, [1769?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

      [On the title page:] Query, Could this be written by Mr. Jackson? from some Expressions and Arguments it should seem so; but others are so unlike his Precision that I rather think he is not the Author.
      The Americans are discontented principally because they have a false idea that their privileges are being infringed and because they fear oppression. The idea has been refuted; I shall deal with the fear by proposing a system of taxation that they cannot consider oppressive. They must admit their obligation to contribute to the common defense of the state. But who compose the state? Only landholders, because land is what invaders covet. From earliest times the landholders of England have borne the burden of defense, either in person or later through taxes and, in many cases, through military service as well.

      A very unnecessary Purpose.
      The government has recently stationed part of the army in America, “not for the sole purpose of defending the colonists against the Indians” but also to guard against European invasion. The Americans might reasonably have been expected to support these troops, but have refused to do so or to pay taxes for the purpose. I propose a tax on all land held by British subjects in America, “ad valorem of their rents,” to be imposed at the same time and rate as the land tax in Great Britain.

      Not one American Tract of Land or Farm in 500 are or ever were rented. How then is this ad valorem to be found? This shows the Folly of thinking to make Laws for a Country so unknown.

      The British State is only the Island of G. Britain. The British Legislature are undoubtedly the only proper Judges of what concerns the Welfare of that State: But the Irish Legislature are the proper Judges of what concerns the Irish State, and the American Legislatures of what concerns the American States respecvitely. By the whole Empire, does this Writer mean all the King’s Dominions? if so, the British Parliament should also govern the Isles of Jersey and Guernsey, Hanover, &c. but it is not so.
      In every state one part must have the direction of the whole, and every British subject must acknowledge “that the directive influence of the British state remains with the British legislature, who are the only proper judges of what concerns the general welfare of the whole empire.” Every part must submit to the burdens imposed for the common defense, provided that these burdens are equitably proportioned among the parts. “But the land-tax which I have proposed, is in its very nature unoppressive,

      This Writer seems ignorant that every Colony has its own civil and military Establishment to provide for, new Roads and Bridges to make, Churches and all other public Edifices to erect, and would he separately tax them moreover with a Tax on Lands equal to what is paid in Britain?
      and is equally well suited to the poorest, as to the richest province of the British empire; for, supposing the rents of the lands near the capital to be five pounds an acre, in other places five shillings, and in others five pence; it is demonstrably plain, that a tax of a fifth or a tenth upon the lowest sum, is not more burdensome than a tax of the same rate upon the highest sum. A fifth of the lowest would be a penny, while a fifth of the highest would be a pound.” Parliament is the sole judge of the necessity of such a tax, and could not discriminate against any taxpayer because each would be assessed according

      It is only plain that you know nothing of the matter.
      to his means. “It is plain” that the Americans would have no cause to complain of unfairness. They double their population every twenty-five or thirty years. To do this they must have “a luxuriant

      How does this appear? Is not a mere Competence sufficient for this purpose?
      abundance” of produce and manufactures, and is it unreasonable to require “a part of this luxuriant

      If America will consent to pay thus its Proportion of British Taxes, will Britain pay out of the whole all the American Taxes? Or is America to pay both?
      abundance to be paid as taxes to support the general establishment” of imperial defense, leaving the colonial legislatures to take care of the other needs of their provinces?

      First advanced by B. Franklin.
        The foregoing Observations on a Paper currency seem just. It is further true that such Currency in America was of greater Advantage to Britain than to the Colonies, as it facilitated the Purchase and Consumption of British Commodities, and discouraged American Manufactures.

      The shortage of gold and silver among them can be balanced by a regulated paper currency, and taxes paid in paper might readily be converted into sterling. Ireland is an example of “a new doctrine, that a nation may prosper and become opulent, with the balance of trade annually against her, which in truth is always the case with almost every distant province in regard to the capital.” Any kind of currency that circulates freely quickens industry. If too much is issued by any one colony, that colony will be most hurt and first compelled to take corrective measures. Prohibiting the colonists from issuing paper for fear that they will print too much is as silly as limiting their food and drink for fear that they will overeat. The old emphasis on gold and silver as the means of national power is outdated. What breeds industry is industry, and to discourage it by suppressing paper currency is an intolerable grievance for the colonists.

      The greatest Part of this was in Goods for the Indian Trade, and not for the Consumption of the Colonists. Therefore no Consequence of the Opulence of the Canadians can be drawn from it.
        It is strange that this Writer should recur to Charlevoix, a Foreigner, for Information of the State of the N. England Colonies. In fact those Colonies are very poor. There are only some few rich Men in the capital Towns.
      Aside from the Floridas, Georgia, and Nova Scotia, the poorest of the colonies is Canada. Yet, to judge by the customs house receipts, even Canada takes annually some £300,000 worth of British commodities. Before the war it must have been far more prosperous than it is now. Yet even then, to judge by Charlevoix’s account, its wealth could not compare with that of New England, where the inhabitants had more opulence than they knew how to enjoy, whereas in New France the appearance of prosperity concealed an underlying poverty.

      Nonsence! It could only arise from thence, as they took very few Prizes from the Enemy.
           A foolish Expression of a Governor in his Speech is not a Declaration of the Legislature.
      More recently New England seems to have acquired so much money that the inhabitants complain of it. At the end of the last war the Governor of Massachusetts told the legislature that it would be necessary “‘to revive and promote a spirit of industry, frugality, and oeconomy, all of which have of late been but too much relaxed by an unusual flow of money, much exceeding what would naturally arise from the produce and manufactures of the country.’ This declaration of the legislature, as it may be justly called, shews the good sense of that colony. …” This superabundance of money indicates either that the balance of trade during the war was favorable to the colony, or that its produce had an

      How could a Consumption of the Produce and Manufactures increase without an Increase of the Produce and Manufactures and how could they increase without an Increase of the Spirit of Industry, which he says has been relax’d? This is all Stuff.
      unusually favorable market, for when “the flow of money is more than what would naturally arise from the produce and manufactures of the country, it can hardly mean anything else than that the common and usual consumption of the produce and manufactures of the country was greatly increased.” The war clearly bettered their circumstances, whereupon the circulation of too much money encouraged idleness and discouraged industry; the colony then, apparently, drained off the excess in improving agriculture, trade, and fishing.

      Are not the poor Negro Slaves who are past their Labour, sick or lame, as great a Burthen to the Colonists?
        Was not the Gold first purchased by the Produce of his Land, obtained by hard Labour? Does Gold drop from the Clouds in Virginia, into the Laps of the Indolent?
      In other colonies, where agriculture is based on slavery, there are no indigent. How happy the British would be were there “no parish-poor nor common beggars”! The great planters use their produce to buy goods for which others need cash, but even small landholders have been known to buy slaves “with gold.”

      Their very purchasing Plate and other Superfluities from England is one Means of disabling them from paying Taxes to England. Would you have it both in Meal and Malt? It has been a great Folly in the Americans, to entertain English Gentlemen with a splendid Hospitality ill suited to their Circumstances; by which they excited no other grateful Sentiment in their Guests, than that of a Desire to tax the Landlord.
      In Virginia, I have been assured, few families are “without some plate,” and the servants at some entertainments are almost as numerous as the guests.

      This is arguing the Riches of a People from their Extravagance, the very Thing that keeps them poor!
      We may judge the wealth of the colonies by the value of their imports, which from Britain alone amounts to three million pounds a year. Another million may be added for imports from the West Indies and elsewhere, bringing the total to four million. But they produce for themselves many of the articles that they consume, and manufacture a great deal of what they wear. The value of these products must be double the value of their imports, which means that their annual consumption amounts to twelve million sterling. The British pay about thirteen million a year in taxes, including

      A Turnpike Tax is no Burthen, as the Turnpike gives more Benefit than it takes. And ought the Rich in Britain, who have made such Numbers of Poor by engrossing all the small Divisions of Land: and who keep Labourers and working People Poor by limiting their Wages; Ought these Gentry to complain of the Burthen of maintaining the Poor that have work’d for them at unreasonably low Rates all their Lives? As well might the Planter complain of his being oblig’d to maintain his poor Negroes, when they grow old, are sick or lame and unable to provide for themselves.
      turnpikes and poor rates, from which the colonists are exempted. It is reasonable that the colonists should pay taxes for the general defense, and there

      The Colonies are almost always considered by these ignorant, flimsey Writers as unwilling to contribute to the general Exigencies of the State which is not true. They are always willing, but will have the granting of their own Money themselves; in which they are right for various Reasons.
      is no fairer way to do so than by a general land tax that falls as equitably on the most sparsely inhabited colony as on the most populous county in Great Britain.

      What Land have they ever taken from you?
        Climate and soil worse in New England.
        He should have said more than 500,000.

      The colonists complain of the high prices they must pay for British commodities, and some argue that these prices are the equivalent of bearing public burdens. In other words “they would be content to take land from us gratuitously,” but are aggrieved at having to buy from Britain whatever they do not manufacture themselves. They should realize that, if manufactures are somewhat dearer for them than for the British, land is cheaper and more fertile. Cultivated land in America is already more extensive than in Great Britain, “and fewer than 100,000 freeholders possess all this extent among them,

      False! The Lands did not belong to the Crown but to the Indians, of whom the Colonists either purchased them at their own Expence, or conquer’d them without Assistance from Britain.
      generally by the bounty of the crown, the greatest number having paid no pecuniary equivalent for them. The lands in Great-Britain and Ireland, on the other hand, are divided among a million of freeholders,

      Equivalent. The Engagement to settle the American Lands, and the Expence of Settlement, are more than an Equivalent, for what was of no Value to Britain without such Settlement.
      most of whom have given a very high equivalent for them; an equivalent which would have procured them land any where on the surface of the globe.” Most of the land in Britain and Ireland is rented, and the rent is reckoned at a third of the value of the produce; this amounts to a 33% tax on the farmer, and makes provisions 33% dearer than they would

      How then is your Tax to be found? How will you know the Rate of Rent of Lands that never were rented?
      otherwise be. In America “the farmer and the proprietor are generally the same person,” who consequently can sell his produce more cheaply. Rents in Great Britain total about twenty-two million, “but

      What signifies Extent of unsettled Lands that produce nothing?
      the rental of the same extent of lands in America is not probably one million sterling.” The British have

      Should the Landlords who receive those high Rents, complain of the high Price, such Rents oblige the Farmer to sell his Provision at?
      as many difficulties “in the purchase of provisions, as the Americans in the purchase of manufactures.” In consequence the cost of living in Britain is so high

      This among genteel People is owing more to expensive Modes of Living than to the Difficulty of procuring Subsistance. Among the Poor it may be otherwise; but they are kept Poor by Law.
      that “the island is crowded with old Batchelors and old maids,” which has cut down the growth of population and prosperity in the past thirty years. “The Americans on the other hand, in the same space of time, have doubled their number of inhabitants by procreation alone; which is certainly not owing to any particular fecundity in the females, but to the great easiness of procuring a subsistence, which is

      B.F.
        They never refused. Cultivate it then.
      an inducement to the establishment of new families.” The Americans should acknowledge that their burdens are lighter than the British and “chearfully contribute their share to the public charges of the state. Were but harmony and good correspondence firmly established between European and American Britons,” the burdens of both would soon be diminished, prices would fall, public revenues would swell, and the share of each taxpayer would shrink.

      How little this Politician knows of Agriculture! Is there any Country where 10 Bushels of Grain are generally got in for one sown? And are all the Charges and Advances for Labour, &c., nothing? No Farmer of America, in fact, makes 5 per cent of his Money. His Profit is only being paid for his own Labour and that of his Children.
        The Opulence of one English of Dutch Merchant would make the Opulence of 100 American Planters.
      But the Americans should shun manufacturing until their rising population forces them into it. For agriculture is more profitable: “I beg to know if the returns of any traffic on earth ever produced so many per cent as the returns of agriculture in a fertile soil, and favourable climate.” Have as many fortunes been made in the past century by manufacturing in Britain, or by trading in Holland, as in America by improving land and opening new settlements? “For one person that has risen to opulence by manufactures, there are ten planters who have, from almost nothing, acquired not only independence, but lordly possessions, or at least what will become lordly possessions to their sons or grandsons. …”

      There is no Necessity for their leaving their Plantations: they can manufacture in their Families at spare Times.
      Their riches would not increase so fast if they leave the land “and run eagerly upon manufactures.”

      The wages of a farm laborer are much less than his value to the state, because he is creating wealth out of the earth and thereby augmenting the national wealth, whereas manufacturing brings merely an exchange of wealth, not its augmentation. Wherever agriculture is profitable, therefore, it

      Depend upon it, the Americans are not so impolitic, as to neglect profitable Settlements for unprofitable Manufactures: But some Manufactures may be more advantageous to some Persons than the Cultivation of Land, and these will prosecute such Manufactures notwithstanding your Oratory.
      would be “a great impolicy” to neglect it. City dwellers prey on each other and live on the edge of poverty; country dwellers, enjoying a favorable

      How then are you, as I said before, to find the Proportion you propose to take for their Tax?
      climate and “having no rents to pay,” seem out of the reach of poverty. The planter and his family are better off than the manufacturer and his. If, then, the legislature secures the planter in his estate, may it not fairly ask of him to contribute to the public

      If he must pay his Colony Taxes as well as your propos’d Land Tax, he will pay a much greater Proportion.
      defense, “when no greater proportion is demanded of him, than is demanded of every other land proprietor?”


Title: Marginalia in a Pamphlet by Allan Ramsay, [1769?]
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

Allan Ramsay (1713–84), the son of the Scottish poet of the same name, was one of the most fashionable artists of the period, and in 1767 became portrait-painter to the King. He was also a political theorist of more boldness of mind than logical rigor, as this pamphlet indicates. It is the first of four on governmental subjects that he published between 1769 and 1783, and it covers a wide range of subjects. Franklin’s comments, in consequence, have an equal range. Some of them, such as those on the Americans’ independence of Parliament, are repetitious; but others explore new ground or old ground in new ways—the freedom of men in a state of nature, the principle of representation, the role of land in taxation. Although the comments are at times fragmentary and always unpolished, they reveal in sum Franklin’s interests and outlook as fully as, if more informally than, his other writings of the time. The date of the marginalia, as usual, cannot be precisely determined. Our guess is that they were written shortly after the pamphlet appeared; in any case we are assigning them, according to our practice, to the earliest likely date.

By whom?
The question of Parliament’s right to tax America is the most important that has ever been debated in Britain, because it raises the issue of supreme authority and therefore of Britain’s existence as a state. Although I support the rights of government, I blame the administration for the way in which American claims have been advanced;

    If such an Union be necessary to G.B. let her endeavour to obtain it by fair Means. It cannot be forced.
    “I cannot help considering those claims, and the indecent manner in which they have been urged, as something very much to their disadvantage.” Once the government is attacked, it must be defended by every one who supports the empire, “the prosperity, the very existence of which depend upon the union of all its parts under one head.”

    A bad Account of Cesar.
    Almost any calamity in a nation will be advantageous to some one in it. Caesar, who preferred to be first in a village to being second in Rome, would doubtless have reduced Rome to a village rather than let another be superior to him there. I am not addressing my arguments to such ambitious men.

  This Writer is ignorant that all the Indians of North America not under the Dominion of the Spaniards, are in that Natural State, being restrain’d by no Laws, having no Courts or Ministers of Justice, no Suits, no Prisons, no Governors vested with any legal Authority. The Persuasion of Men distinguish[ed] by Reputation of Wisdom is the only Means by which others are govern’d or rather led. And the State of these Indians was probably the first State of all Nations.
The principle is frequently advanced that all men in their natural state are free and independent, but in practice this is untrue. “No history of the past, no observation of the present time, can be brought to countenance such a natural state.” The principle of an equal right to liberty, which is inseparable from an equal right to property, has never in fact been acknowledged by any but the lowest classes, who use it to cut the throats and seize the goods of their betters.

From the principle, nevertheless, has been derived the conclusion that government exists by virtue of a social contract, whereby each individual surrenders a portion of his natural independence in order to form a sovereign power for the protection

  This is an Assertion contrary to Fact, as I have shown above, and therefore all Inferences from it are unfounded.
of all. But, because “no such state of independence was ever known to exist,” the social contract is equally mythical. If the legality of a government depended on contract, there never was a legal government.

  This is only your Dream.
“Such are the idle dreams of metaphysicians.”

  May not Equals unite with Equals for common Purposes?
  The rights of government derive, not from a voluntary human contract, but from human weakness and necessities. A solitary individual flies for protection to whoever is strong enough to provide it, and offers that person his service in return for security. This is the true social contract, a relation of weaker and stronger. Society is composed of the ruling and the ruled, “all equality and independence

  I do not find this strange Law among those of Nature. I doubt it is forged, and not in the Book.
being by the law of nature strictly forbidden: and it is farther declared by the same authority, that whosoever is not able to command, nor willing to obey, shall forfeit his living or his life.”

  That is, He that is strongest may do what he pleases with those that are weaker. A most Equitable Law of Nature indeed.
  The relationship of master and servant clearly has natural and divine sanction; what is not so clear is the limits of the master’s right. The whole basis of my argument is “that the sole determination of that right rests with the superior; because, if that is not allowed, it cannot under God reside any where; and so the

  No Man would unite in Society on such Terms.
union, which we suppose so necessary in society, … must of course be dissolved.”

  Is it, has it been always so?
  Any viable society, then, is divided into two parts, of which the governing is “always the least numerous” and acts as a single mind. This is the ruling

  Is there then no such thing as a Society in which the Ruling Power is circumscrib’d by previous Laws or Agreements?
power, “whose will … must be allowed the measure of its own rights, and of those of its subjects.” Such a power has no right to do wrong, but it alone can determine right and wrong; and against it private judgment has no standing. Conflicts between individuals may be left to ordinary judges, but in whatever concerns the safety of the whole “the governing part must, of necessity, be both judge and party.” This is the price of having government.

One may easily imagine then how the Decisions will turn.

  But then you say the Ruler and not the Ruled are to judge whether any Exertion of Power is illegal.
  Natural rights and natural laws are the framework within which the ruler must legislate. Any act of power that is unnecessary, or that does not promote the safety of the whole, is a breach of the natural compact between ruler and ruled. Sacrifices made in war, even when pointless, do not impair that

  This seems extravagant on the other side. Does he expect ever to see Rulers incapable of Mistakes, even the smallest?
compact; yet “the smallest injury done by Government to the meanest peasant, where no necessity of state can be rationally alledged, is sufficient to throw the whole into confusion.”

  It appears here [that?] He does not expect such Impeccability but the Contrary: What then can hinder the whole (as he says above) going into Confusion?
  God seems to have said to those in authority, take power and use it for the good of all. “‘The task I impose is difficult, … and you will commit many errors in the performance of it: but go on boldly, be not discouraged, for none of those errors shall be imputed

  How so?
to you as crimes, if you can forgive yourself all men shall forgive you’” Power must be used only for maintaining authority and preserving order; use for any other purpose will be punished.

  No wonder these Commands were not attended to, as perhaps they never were before heard of.
  “From an inattention to these great commands have arisen all the disorders and revolutions in government with which history acquaints us.” Forcing men to profess religious opinions, for instance, that

  And yet King Lords and Commons of England have supposed this, as well as other Kings and Governments. France still supposes it, and Spain and Portugal.
were contrary to their consciences “could never be supposed by any but ideots, necessary for the support of government.” Yet we all know what happened to the Spaniards when they tried this in the Low Countries, or to the Stuarts in Britain.

  Nobody; but Every body.
  If you ask who has the right to judge which acts of power are or are not contrary to nature, “I answer, no body. The immediate impulse of every man’s feelings stands in the stead of all judgment in such cases.” For men rise together against the government, and it falls.

  Does not every Man’s Feelings, as he says, Declare that his Property is not to be taken from him without his Consent?
  What do these laws of nature have to do with the controversy between Britain and America? The original compact, it is alleged, has been broken; but when and how? By our being taxed without our consent, say the Americans, which is contrary to the law of nature. “When you ask them to quote the page; or shew them some law of nature which speaks the very reverse, it is then by the constitution of Britain.

  The Solemn Declaration of the Petition of Right &c., is that no Man shall be taxed but by common Consent in Parliament.
There when they are shewn that the solemn declarations of the legislature, and the constant practice, … speak against them, they declare themselves against all those solemn declarations and practices, telling

  Very true.Probably he here means Lock, Sidney, &c.
us, that what has been done, if wrongfully done, confers no right to repeat it, and back again they go to their laws of nature, or to the flimsy hypothesis of some scholastic writer to new-model nature and the constitution of England. …”

  What is the nature of the taxing power, and does it differ, as the Americans contend, from other forms of legislation? Not all subjects can be employed in the public service, but all should contribute to the support of those who are. A tax is itself a form of service, and such a vital one that only the supreme power may determine it. A subject who determines his own service is no longer a subject. The English

  This is a quibbling Argument. If I appoint a Representative for the express purpose of doing a Business for me that is for MY SERVICE and that of others, and to consider what I am to pay as my Proportion of the Expence necessary for accomplishing that Business, I am then tax’d by my own Consent. A Number of Persons unite to form a Company for Trade, Expences are necessary, Directors are chosen to do the Business and proportion those Expences. They are paid a Reasonable Consideration for their Trouble. There is nothing of weak and strong, Protection on one hand, and Service on the other. The Directors are the Servants, not the Masters; their Duty is prescrib’d, the Power they have is from the Members and returns to them. The Directors are also accountable. The Money paid is for the Benefit of the Payers.
people have no right of consent to taxation: once they elect a House of Commons, they surrender to it the absolute control of their purse strings. If their confidence is abused, it is true, they may oust their representatives at the end of seven years; but this has nothing to do with the freedom of the Commons to do as it pleases while it holds power. Although its composition may change with elections, its right as part of the government is perpetual. A manifestation of this right is the Parliamentary rule that with

  No Petition is admitted against a Money Bill because the Representatives are sent expressly to make such Bills, among other Business to be done for the People.
a money bill, unlike almost any other form of legislation, a petition against it is not admitted while the bill is under consideration.

  All mere quibbling!This Author seems to like a Paradox.  Thus the English change their Ground as well as the American! We were once told much of this virtual Representation.
  To show “the frivolousness of the vulgar notion that the people of England keep the possession of their own purses, and give their consent to their own taxation by their representatives,” suppose that the Commons, Lords, and even the King were elected every seven years by all the men of England: still “they would be taxed without their own consent, as much as if they lived under the great Turk. … This supposed representation, even with regard to the House of Commons, is very far from being true, and … the word Virtual, which has been clapped in, to supply this defect, has no meaning at all.” The history of the evolution of Parliament proves that an elected member represents only his own constituency. He votes, however, to tax people all over the country who had no part in choosing him; “yet

  When Money was levied from the Principality of Chester by Act of a Parliament in which they had no Representative, it came into the Heads of all the Bishops, Abbots, Barons, Knights, and other Free holders and Inhabitants, Clergy and Laity, that the Money was levied from them illegally. They told the King so, and he owned it. They told the Parliament so, and it came into the Parliaments Heads to confess it, make the Remonstrance of that County a Preamble to the Bill by which Redress was given them.
  “it never came into any bodies head to fancy that the money levied from them for the publick service, was illegally and unconstitutionally levied.”

Freeholders either sat or were represented in Parliament because they were powerful. When they lost their power through becoming impoverished, they lost their vote: the act of 8 Henry VI limited the franchise to those among them who possessed at least 40 shillings a year, on the ground that elections would otherwise become dangerously tumultuous.

  This Act was an infamous Breach of Trust and violation of the Rights of the Freeholders, who certainly never by their Choice intended to impower their Representatives to deprive them of their Right of Voting for Representatives thereafter. The very next Act arbitrarily limits the Wages of Working People, and provides for compelling them to work at the Rates prescribed, which seems to show, that Tumults were only the Pretence, and that the true Intention was to put it out of the Power of the Populace [to] obstruct the Election of those who thus oppress’d them.
This act was intended to stabilize the constitution by halting the increase in the number of voters. The intention has been thwarted, however, by the changing value of money. There are now ten 40–shilling freeholders for one in the time of Henry VI. “But although these are legal voters by the letter of

  The ancient Constitution was previous to this Act: and by that all had a Right to vote.
the law, they are not so by the spirit of the ancient constitution, which plainly intended to lop off nine out of ten of them. …” In addition there are “the

  Why have not the Copyholders a Vote? As to those who hold no Lands, they in fact never pay any Taxes in reality, but in appearance only. You may if you please make a Law that all the Taxes necessary for the Service of the State shall be paid by the Labourers only. This would not affect the Labourers. Suppose by such a Law each Labourer who receives but 12d. a Day should be taxed £5. The Effect would only be that he must thenceforth have £5 1s. for a Days Labour paid by his Employer. Taxes must be paid out of the Produce of the Land. There is no other possible Fund. Therefore the Consent of Landholders is only necessary. Merchants, Manufacturers, &c. pay no taxes really, but only apparently: For they rate their Goods in Proportion to the Consumers.
labourers, the farmers, and even the copy-holders of land, who have no vote in chusing those who impose taxes on them.”

  All Quibble. If the Grand Seignior is sole Landlord he pays all Taxes out of his Rents, for the greater his Tax the less he can otherwise receive of his Tenants, Since the Produce of the Earth is the only Source of Revenue. So it is by his own Consent that he taxes himself.
Virtual representation, as a principle of government, means that those elected, whatever their number, represent the whole. But suppose that all the land is held by a single freeholder, as in Turkey. “Then is the Grand Signor virtual representative of all the people of Turkey, their universal knight of the shire, and, in a most parliamentary manner, levies what taxes he pleases upon them, by their own consent.”

  A most impudent Assertion!
  I have begun by showing that the idea of a people’s consenting to be taxed “is contrary to the nature of government, and unsupported by any fact.

  A Scotchman by this Phrase.
I have been at pains to shew that the notion of the legislative power acting by virtue of representation,

  How comes it then, that the Commons only, who are chosen by the People, grant Money, and lay Taxes?
is no principle in the British constitution; and I have

  They would once have us Americans satisfy’d with this Notion of virtual Representation: But having made them asham’d of it, they now tell us there is no such thing in the British Constitution as Representation at all!
finished by shewing that the words virtual representation, either mean nothing at all, or mean a great deal more than those who use them would be willing to admit: and yet, after all my pains, my American antagonists are as much out of my reach as before.”

Their claiming the right of Englishmen to be taxed by their own consent misled me into thinking that they wanted to be represented in Parliament. They say instead that each colony has a parliament, which alone has the power of raising money. The question at issue, for all its importance, is so simple

  Yours does not seem to be such.
as to be “within the compass of a plain and sound understanding. The principles upon which it is to be

  This excellent Principle is, that Power gives Right. A Right to judge, think and act as it pleases.
discussed are universal, comprehensive, and applicable to every possible case; and every opposition to

  Mere Assertion without the least Proof.
them is immediately reducible to a falsity in point of fact, or an absurdity in point of reasoning.” The only difficulty in applying them arises from the Americans’ inability or unwillingness to say what they want. First they apparently want the rights of British subjects; then “they refuse to be taxed like other British subjects, and each colony requires a parliament of its own.

  A Falsity! They were always taxed like British Subjects by their own Representatives, and are willing to continue so to be taxed.    When an American says he has a Right to all the Privileges of a British Subject, he does not call himself a British Subject, he is an American Subject of the King; the Charters say they shall be entitled to all the Privileges of Englishmen as if they had been born within the Realm. But they were and are without the Realm, therefore not British Subjects; and tho’ within the King’s Dominions, because they voluntarily agreed to be his Subjects when they took his Charters, and have created those Dominions for him, yet they are not within the Dominion of Parliament which has no Authority but within the Realm.

  Only to the King.
“At one time they acknowledge their subjection to Great Britain; and almost in the same breath, endeavour to prove that each petty colony has a right to be her equal. One moment they bar all considerations of force … in deciding the rights of sovereigns

  This is an invidious Turn. They have indeed equal Right.

  Here the Acti[ons] of one or two Mobs are ascribed to the whole People of America. If this is so then ascribe the Actions of Wilkes’ Mob to the whole People of Britain.
and subjects, and the next endeavour to establish what they call their rights by a variety of outrages, such as were never imputed to any established government of the most arbitrary kind. At one time an American claims the rights of an Englishman; if these are not sufficient, he drops them, and claims the rights of an Irishman; and, when these do not fully answer his purpose, he expects to be put upon the footing of a Hanoverian. …

  When did he ever drop them? He has undoubtedly this Right both of an Irishman and a Hanoverian, to be govern’d by his own Prince and the Laws of his own Country, and not by the Parliament of Britain.

  Who has ever shewn them this? Does not all History show the contrary? Have not all Mankind in all Ages had the Right of deserting their Native Country when made uneasy in it? Did not the Saxons desert their Native Country when they came to Britain? Is it not Tyranny in any Government to make Prisoners of its Subjects, and is it not contrary to their Rights? Will a Scotchman tell us this, whose Compatriots are to be found in every Country upon Earth? Could there possibly be more than one legal Government in the World at this Time if this Doctrine is true? Must not all Nations but the first be Deserters?
“First they try to found the extraordinary privileges they claim upon birth-right; but when they are shewn that by birth they had no right to desert their native

  An impudent Falsity! When did they ever drop their Birth right? When were they shewn this? Are Charters exempting the Receivers from the Laws in being, empowering them to make new Laws and different, to make War, punish with Death, &c. given to every common Corporation?
country, they drop the birthright, and bring forth their charters. When they are shewn that these charters are no other than what are given to every common corporation and trading company, they then cease to be charters and become all at once compacts. At one time it is the love of liberty that made them take shelter in

  And Compacts they are and ever were.

  Another Misrepresentation. It was to enjoy Liberty of Conscience, and Freedom from tyrannical Acts of Parliament, that they went to a Country where neither the Power of Parliament nor of Prerogative had any Existence, and where the King, on the Condition that they would continue to own him as theil Sovereign, was contented to limit the Pretensions of his Prerogative by solemn Charters.
those distant climes, from the tyranny of prerogative; yet when we ask them with whom they made those compacts just mentioned, they tell us, with a King James or a King Charles. How must the great

  These great Men he treats with great Contempt in a former Part of this Pamphlet, calling their Opinions the idle Dreams of Metaphysicians, and the flimsey Hypotheses of scholastic Writers. It is the Character of the Scotch to be contemptuous.
shades of Algernon Sidney and John Lock exclaim, how must they rage … to hear that there should be Englishmen who pretend to read and admire their writings, and yet understand them so little as to own that they had entered into a compact, or as these patriots would call it, a conspiracy, with a King, in order to obtain a dispensation from the laws of the land, and the authority of parliament!

  He does not know that both Sidney and Locke were concerned in drawing up two of those Charters, viz. that for Carolina, and that for Pensilvania. This Paragraph is all mere Banter.
“The assertion that these charters are not charters, but Pacta conventa, is brim-full of absurdity. For, passing over the manifest illegality already

  The whole had [no] Authority in America and so the Absurdity vanishes.
hinted, of one part of the sovereign power dispensing with the authority of the whole; the whole sovereign

  This is a most extravagant Assertion. Would the Author persuade us that the whoe Sovereign Power cannot stipulate with a Part of the People that are gone into a foreign Country, that for their Encouragement they shall have certain Advantages? If this were t[rue?] not only Charters but Acts of Parliament are mere Vanity when propos’d to Colonists as something to be depended on. Indeed the whole Doctrine of t[his?] Writer imports that there is no Right but Power, and that nothing is wrong which you are able to do; and consequently, whenever the Colonies are strong enough, they may dissolve their Charters, and set up Kings of their own.
power could not, by the nature of things, enter into any indefeasible compact of that sort.” For sovereignty by its nature has no degrees but is always supreme, and cannot be destroyed, whereas a compact is between independent sovereignties. If such a compact is to be anything more than a treaty, to be observed only as long as it suits the convenience of both parties, the agreement itself must recognize some superior power that will enforce its terms and amend them as the need arises. Otherwise, “in case of any misunderstanding, there lies no appeal but to the God of battles, whose decision only suspends

  And so it seems that whoever has [a] Decision in his Favour, is really in the Right; and thus successful Villainy is never wrong, and the Cesar he condemns p. 6 [p. 305 above] was as good a Man as Marcus Antoninus.
the suit till a future term, when the party that was cast may find the means of entering a new action.” The classic example of such a superior power is in

  A Phrase of the Scottish Law.
the Act of Union between England and Scotland. In “this solemn paction” one article empowers the new British Parliament to interpret all the other articles of the union so created. In 1725 many Scots objected to a newly enacted tax on malt as an unconstitutional exercise of Parliament’s authority, and rioted against the tax-collectors and those who had supported the act. The government recognized that the dignity of Parliament required obedience.

  Would you charge these Riots to the Account of all Scotland, as you do those in Boston to all the Americans? P. 51 [p. 317 above].

  Troops have also been sent to Boston; but with what Effect? They have made the matter worse.
“There were sent to Glasgow, where the pretended standard of liberty was set up, some companies of foot, and some troops of dragoons,” who soon brought the rioters to understand the rights of the

  This is telling us, We will not reason with you, but we will cut your Throats.
legislature. This the Americans will call “club law, … but there never was a question of supremacy decided by any other sort of law.” Force and law are inseparable. “Is it to argument or club law, to which the respectable populace of Boston and Rhode-island

  Is it fair to put this Charge upon the Public, and introduce the Mobs and their Actions instead of the Assemblies and their Petitions Remonstrances and solemn Resolutions?
trust the justice of their cause? Is it argument to demolish the houses or destroy the goods of those who differ from them in opinion; or is it argument to carry them to the tree of liberty, and there oblige them to take God to witness to sentiments not their own,

  What is all this to the Purpose? Have not the Assemblies condemn’d these Actions, and made good all Damages to the Sufferers? How wicked it is then, thus to misrepresent a Country, in order to irritate Government against it?
for fear of being immediately put to death? These are outrages which none but the most ignorant and distempered imaginations could ever dread from any kind of established government, and yet are committed by those, who … complain of cruel and arbitrary exertions of power in the mild government of Great Britain, under the most just and humane of Kings.”

  The Term of British Subjects he might have given as an Instance.
I have used the word “colony” in conformance with present usage. But falsehood is promoted by “the admission of improper terms,” which in this case has led to an analogue with Greek colonies, “which,

  Well acknowledg’d.
indeed, had little other relation to their mother-country, than a sort of cousinship.” In fact the American provinces “are not properly colonies either in word or deed. Their most ancient name is plantations, and

  A Mistake then in the Acts of Parliament that call them so.

  A Province, strictly speaking, is a Country conquered, therefore not so applicable to the Settlements in America, no conquered People living in them.
they have always been, in fact, provinces, governed by a lieutenant or governor, sent by the King. …” The inhabitants are entitled to their rights, not by virtue of descent, but from

  Here the Author (and most of these Writers do the same) bewilders himself by admitting an improper Term. See P. 60 [p. 323 above]. They are Subjects of the King. The People of G. B. are Subjects themselves. They are not Sovereigns. They have no Subjects.
“their being faithful subjects of Great Britain; since

  But what signifies this Law, since you tell us, p. 53 [p. 320 above], That the whole Sovereign Power cannot make such a Compact?
the same advantages are by law expressly communicated to such of them as were born in Westphalia and the Palatinate, and who never set foot upon

  No British Ground out of Britain.
British ground till they meet with it on the other side

  Names are of little Importance in this Question.
of the Atlantic.” The Americans prefer “colony” to any other term because it gives them a degree of independence. But, whatever name is used, “the

  Here is the Authors great Mistake repeated. Britain is not an Emperor. They are Parts of the King’s Dominions, as the Provinces in France were, as Scotland was before the Union, as Jersey, Guernsey, and Hanover are still; to be Governed by the King according to their own Laws and Constitutions, and not by Acts of the British Parl[iamen]t, which has Power only within the Realm.
plain truth is, that those countries … are, from their nature and situation, only subordinate parts in the empire of Britain, and such they would

  This Necessity is merely imaginary.
necessarily continue … under some other powerful European state, in case their … tie, with what they are still pleased

  They us’d to call her by that endearing Appellation; but her late Conduct entitles rather to the Name of Stepmother.
to call their Mother Country, should happen to be dissolved.”

  The Protection is mutual and equal in Proportion to Numbers and Wealth, at present.
    Not the least Necessity for this.
    Stick then to that Truth.
    Consider then what those should be.
The separation of Britain and her “American appertinencies” would destroy the prosperity and liberty of both. Until “New England is strong enough to protect Old England, and the seat of the British empire is transferred from London to Boston, there is an absolute necessity that the right of giving law to America should continue to be vested in Great Britain. That it is the interest of Great Britain to protect and cherish her American provinces instead of oppressing them, is an undeniable truth; and it is, perhaps, no less true, that some farther attention, and some farther means of communication, are still wanting to that desirable end: but let every true friend to Britain and to all her connexions stand forth in defence of her great legislative uncountroulable power, without which no union, and of course no safety, can be expected.”

  This Writer is concise, lively, and elegant in his Language, but his reasonings are too refin’d and Paradoxical to make Impression on the Understanding or convince the Minds of his Readers. And his main Fact on which they are founded is a Mistake.


Title: New Fables, 2 January 1770
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

The first ascription of these fables to Franklin was by Verner Crane, and his evidence is conclusive. When the second and third fables were composed, as distinct from published, is impossible to say; the genesis of the first goes back almost two years, although in the intervening period it changed considerably.

NEW FABLES, humbly inscribed to the S——y of St——e for the American Department.
FABLE I.
A Herd of Cows had long afforded Plenty of Milk, Butter, and Cheese to an avaricious Farmer, who grudged them the Grass they subsisted on, and at length mowed it to make Money of the Hay, leaving them to shift for Food as they could, and yet still expected to milk them as before; but the Cows, offended with his Unreasonableness, resolved for the future to suckle one another.
  FABLE II.
An Eagle, King of Birds, sailing on his Wings aloft over a Farmer’s Yard, saw a Cat there basking in the Sun, mistook it for a Rabbit, stoop’d, seized it, and carried it up into the Air, intending to prey on it. The Cat turning, set her Claws into the Eagle’s Breast; who, finding his Mistake, opened his Talons, and would have let her drop; but Puss, unwilling to fall so far, held faster; and the Eagle, to get rid of the Inconvenience, found it necessary to set her down where he took her up.
  FABLE III.
A Lion’s Whelp was put on board a Guinea Ship bound to America as a Present to a Friend in that Country: It was tame and harmless as a Kitten, and therefore not confined, but suffered to walk about the Ship at Pleasure. A stately, full-grown English Mastiff, belonging to the Captain, despising the Weakness of the young Lion, frequently took it’s Food by Force, and often turned it out of it’s Lodging Box, when he had a Mind to repose therein himself. The young Lion nevertheless grew daily in Size and Strength, and the Voyage being long, he became at last a more equal Match for the Mastiff; who continuing his Insults, received a stunning Blow from the Lion’s Paw that fetched his Skin over his Ears, and deterred him from any future Contest with such growing Strength; regretting that he had not rather secured it’s Friendship than provoked it’s Enmity.


Title: The Colonist’s Advocate: I, 4 January 1770
From: Colonist’s Advocate
To:

This essay, printed in the Public Advertiser on Jan. 4, 1770, was the first in a series of eleven that ran in that newspaper for the next two months. The series was designed to muster support for the total repeal of the Townshend Acts, and ended when the last hope of such repeal was dashed in March. Verner Crane, with his usual meticulous and persuasive scholarship, has demonstrated that Franklin was the principal author, but may have had some assistance from his fellow member of the Club of Honest Whigs, James Burgh. The essays were the only instance during his English missions in which Franklin committed himself in advance to ongoing serial publication. Even though he did not meet the schedule as first announced, of two a week, and even if he did have Burgh’s help as collaborator, the literary effort involved must have conflicted seriously with the other demands upon his time. Hence it is not surprising that the essays contain little that is original; they reiterate, and on occasion amplify, arguments that he had formulated earlier.

[January 4, 1770]
The Time now approaches when the Great Council of the Nation is to meet for deliberating on the momentous Concerns of this mighty Empire; no Object of greater Importance than the present unhappy Dispute between the Mother Country, and her Colonies, is likely to come before them, I therefore beg leave to offer to the Public a few brief Considerations on this weighty Subject. The Hope that the Legislature will at length be graciously pleased to relax of the Severity heretofore exercised against our Fellow-Subjects in America, and to consult more deliberately the mutual Advantage both of them and us, has encouraged me to seize the present Opportunity. The impartial Publick will judge, from my Manner of treating the Subject, in the following Numbers, which will appear in this Paper on Mondays and Thursdays, what Opportunities I have had, during some Years Service in America, of knowing the Inclinations, Affections, and Concerns of the Inhabitants in the Provinces of that extensive Continent. Be it remembered by those, who may find themselves disposed to object against this Publication, that where the Matter is of such Weight, the Manner of stating it is of less Consequence, and that, while Grievances continue unredressed, the Continuance of Complaint is to be expected.
It is well known, that the late fatal Rupture between us and our Colonies, is owing to an Innovation introduced under the Administration of Mr. Grenville, by which, instead of the usual Method of Requisition, at all Times readily complied with by our Colonies to their utmost Power, we have thought fit to lay upon them sundry Taxes, with the declared Purpose of raising Money for the Benefit of the Revenue, while they have no Representation adequate, or inadequate in the Assembly, which imposes those Taxes. To this we have added an express authoritative Declaration, that the British Parliament has a Right to impose Taxes on the Colonies without their Consent given either in Person, or by Representation.
These Proceedings the Colonists consider as a direct Attack on the Vitals of their Liberty. “What is it to be enslaved?” the Colonists say, “If, being deprived of our Property, without our Consent, nay, in direct Opposition to our Inclination, by an Assembly in which not one Individual is interested, or authorized to take our Part, but, on the contrary, all think themselves interested to burthen us for their own Alleviation. What is it to be enslaved if this be not?” According to Mr. Locke, the late Declaration of the Parliament’s Right to tax the unrepresented Colonies, annihilates the whole Property of every British Subject in America, and at once beggars three Millions of industrious, loyal, and brave People. “I have truly no Property in that which another can, by Right, take from me, when he pleases, against my Consent,” says that great Writer. Now, in this very Predicament, have we, by the late Claim of a Right to tax the Colonies, without Representation, placed a very great Proportion of the British free-born Subjects. Three Millions, out of Fifteen of which his Majesty is Sovereign, are declared no longer Masters of the Fruits of their own Industry. Their All is at the absolute Disposal of the British Parliament, to every Intent and Purpose, as effectually as the Property of every Frenchman, or every Turk is at the Mercy of their respective Governments, in which the Subjects of those unhappy Countries are wholly unrepresented, and denied all Power of refusing; in which important Respect the Case of our Colonists is equally calamitous and oppressive.
The British Subjects on the West Side of the Atlantick, see no Reason why they must not have the Power of giving away their own Money, while those on the Eastern Side claim that Privilege. They imagine, it would sound very unmelodious in the Ear of an Englishman, to tell him, that, by the Rapidity of Population in our Colonies, the Time will quickly come when the Majority of the Subjects will be in America; and that in those Days there will be no House of Commons in England, but that Britain will be taxed by an American Parliament, in which there will not be one Representative for either of the British Kingdoms.
If the British Subjects, residing in this Island, claim Liberty, and the Disposal of their Property, on the Score of that unalienable Right that all Men, except those who have justly forfeited those Advantages have to them, the British People, residing in America, challenge the same on the same Principle. If the former alledge, that they have a Right to tax themselves, from Prescription, and Time immemorial, so may the latter. If the former have Charters from Princes, so have the latter. There is not one Species of Claim, natural or artificial, on which the former can found their Right to the Disposal of their own Property, to which the latter is not equally intitled. Indeed, an Empire, composed of half Freemen, half Slaves (in a very few Years the British Subjects in America will equal the Number of those in the Mother Country) would resemble the Roman Empire in it’s ruinous State, as it is described in the wonderful Prediction of the Prophet Daniel, by the Representation of the Legs and Feet of an Image partly of Iron, and partly of Clay, partly strong, and partly broken. God forbid that ever this Description should be applicable to the British Empire!
N.B. If any Fact should, in the Course of these Papers, be wrong stated, it will immediately be corrected, if candidly pointed out. But Gentlemen will please to decline urging any of the Objections already published against the Reasonings of the Colonists, because most of them will be considered in the Course of these Papers.


Title: Petition to the Treasury from Franklin and Others for a Grant of Land, 4 January 1770
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To:

The formation of the Grand Ohio Company in the early summer of 1769 had begun a flurry of activity among its principal promoters. The original request to the Privy Council for a grant of 2,400,000 acres, to be carved out of the territory ceded to the crown by the Indians in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix, had been referred to the Board of Trade. After a five-month pause the Board held a hearing in December, 1769, at which Hillsborough made the suggestion—most surprising in the light of his previous attitude—that the grant be enlarged to a size suitable for a new colony, and himself offered to sound out the opinion of the Treasury. The promoters may have been as much startled as pleased by the American Secretary’s volte-face, but they were quick to improve the shining hour. At a meeting on December 27, with sixteen in attendance and Franklin in the chair, they decided to reorganize and enlarge the Company so as to include George Croghan and his group and those in the Indiana Company, and to raise the ante by asking for a grant of twenty million acres. The petition printed below grew out of this meeting and was presented to the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury, including Grafton and North, by the signers in person on January 4, 1770. The Commissioners behaved as might be expected: they were receptive in principle but averse to reaching any quick decision, and waited on further information from the Board of Trade and opinions from other governmental departments. The negotiations thereupon relapsed into their usual torpor.

[January 4, 1770]
The Memorial of Thos Walpole, JohnSarjant, Dr. Franklin and Saml.Wharton for the Purchase of Lands in America in behalf of themselves andtheir Associates.
SHEWETH.
That your Memorialists propose to your Lordships to become Purchasers of a certain tract of land within the late Cession made to the King at Fort Stanwix by the six Nations and described in a Paper hereto annexed paying for the same £10,460 7s. 3d. and a Quit Rent of 2 shillings for every 100 Acres of cultivable Land within the said tract, which Quit Rent to commence after the expiration of 20 years. One fifth part of the Principal Money to be paid immediately on receiving a deed of Grant under the Great Seal for the said Tract of Land and the remaining four fifths to be paid annually by four equal Instalments—And Your Memorialists &ca.
Thos. WalpoleJohn SarjantB. FranklinSaml. Wharton

To the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of His Majesty’s Treasury.
Copy
  [Annex:] Beginning on the South side of the River Ohio, opposite the Mouth of Sioto, thence Southerly through the Pass in the Onasioto Mountains to the South side of the said Mountains thence along the side of the said Mountains North Easterly to the Fork of the Great Kenhawa made by the junction of Green Briar and New Rivers thence along the said Green Briar River on the Easterly side of the same into the head or termination of the North Easterly branch thereof, thence Easterly to the Allegheny Mountain thence along the said Allegheny Mountain to Lord Fairfax’s line, thence along the same to the Spring head of the North branch of the River Powtomack thence along the Western Boundary line of the Province of Maryland to the Southern Boundary line of the Province of Pennsylvania, Thence along the said Southern Boundary line of the Province of Pennsylvania to the end thereof, Thence along the   Western Boundary line of the said Province of Pennsylvania until the same shall strike the River Ohio, Thence down the said River Ohio to the Place of Beginning.
Copy

Endorsed: Memorial of the Honourable Thomas Walpole and his Associates to the Lords of the Treasury for Lands On the River ohio, and the Bounds of the same.


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from John Ewing, 4 January 1770
From: Ewing, John
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Sir
Philada. Janry. 4th 1769
Our Philosophical Society have at Length ordered me to draw out an Account of our Observations of the Transits of Venus and Mercury to be transmitted to you as our President thro’ whose Hands we think they may most conveniently be communicated to the learned Societies of Europe to whom you may apprehend they will be agreable. The Reason of their not coming sooner to Hand was a rash Agreement of the Society not to send them abroad untill we had printed them in our own Transactions. But finding that there was some Reason to suspect that some partial Accounts of them had been transmitted to England, by some of our Members privately, which possibly might be inaccurate and not much to be depended on, the Society have thought proper to reconsider that hasty Agreement, and send them without farther Loss of Time. We hope however that they will be as soon with you as those that have been made in South America and the East Indies. I have accordingly enclosed to you two Copies, one directed to the Astronomer Royal Mr. Maskelyne at Greenwich and the other to be transmitted by you to any of the learned Societies of Europe you shall think proper. I would have had them transcribed in a fairer Hand than my own, but only that the only Post which can reach the Packet leaves Town this morning.
You are well acquainted, Sir, with the Serenity of our Air, and the Advantages we enjoy above many other Countries in Europe for making celestial Observations could a fixed Observatory be established in Philadelphia. I have mentioned this Matter to Mr. Maskelyne and referred him to you for Advice how to bring it into Execution should it meet with your Approbation. You are well acquainted with the Views of our Assembly, and the Unreasonableness of expecting that they would lay out any of the public Money for such a Purpose, unless it was recommended by you to them, as they place an unreserved Confidence in your Judgment, concerning what Measures would Lend to the Reputation of the Province the Advancement of useful Knowledge and the Benefit of the public in general. Geography, Navigation and the Arts that depend upon them are daily reaping Advantages from the Astronomical Observations made in the different Observatories of Europe. Should you think it of any Consequence that we in this infant Country might bear any Part in these Things, your known Character and Abilities to judge in these Matters must necessarily have so much Influence with our Assembly as to induce them to bear at least a Part in the Expences of it. And possibly Mr. Maskelyne might suggest some Means of affording some Assistance from Home, from the Consideration of its being made subservient to his Observatory at Greenwich and put under his general Direction.
I have not mentioned this Proposal to any Persons here but to Mr. Coomb, excepting to you, and that under a Promise that he will not speak of it, as I apprehend that there is a Propriety in its coming from you and the Astronomer Royal. So that if it does not meet with your Approbation, pray let it sleep and be so kind as to excuse the Trouble given you by Sir Your most obedient and very humble Servant
John Ewing
P S. Mr. Coombe tells me that he has mentioned the above Proposal to his Son, with a Desire that he should speak to you on the Subject.
Please to send me Authentic Accounts of the Observations of the Transit of Venus made in as many Places as you can conveniently procure, if your Leisure from more important Business will permit it, that we may here also endeavour to solve the curious Problem of the Suns Parallax. If it would not be trespassing too much, I should also be much obliged to you for an Account of Messrs. Mason’s & Dixons Determinations of the Length of a Degree of Latitude here, as they have been employed by the R. Society to measure it in the lower Counties.

Endorsed: Revd Mr Ewing  Jan 4. 1770


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from James Parker, 4 January 1770
From: Parker, James
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Honoured Sir
Woodbridge Jan. 4, 1769 [1770]
I am yet here about the Jersey Laws: I sent up to New York 8 Days ago, a Letter for you with the first of the inclosed Bill of Exchange for £200, Wats and Mc Evers on Harley and Drummond which I had of Mr. Colden: but the Weather has been so extreme severe, that I have not learnt whether it could be sent by a Merchantship, or by this Packet; but lest that should be with a Merchant Ship, I venture to send this per Packet. By that I sent a New power to you which I designed by Capt. Davis, who witnessed it, but he sailed suddenly and I knew it not. The Laws will take me here about two Weeks from this Time, when I hope to return to New-York. I continue very Stiff and sore but seem to gather Strength a little: I have resigned the Office in the Custom-House: We are otherways much as usual, and with the Utmost Regards remain Your most obliged Servant
James Parker
PS. I don’t remember ever to have seen your Examination in a Quebeck Paper, it was in several of the Eastern Ones; but I write to Quebeck about it, and if I can get it I will send it.

Addressed: For / Dr Benjamin Franklin / Craven Street / London / per Packet


Title: To Benjamin Franklin from Samuel Wharton, [10 January? 1770]
From: Wharton, Samuel
To: Franklin, Benjamin

Dear Sir
Wednesday Morning [January 10, 1770?]
I was informed late last Night, That a Number of your and my Letters were lying at the New York Coffee House and Therefore I went into the City early this morning and have taken up all I could find.
I send by my Boy, yours. I [am] always very respectfully your Very affectionate Friend.
S Wharton

Addressed: To / Dr. Franklin


Title: The Colonist’s Advocate: III, 11 January 1770
From: Colonist’s Advocate
To:

Suppose some long-headed Minister should invent a Tax to be imposed only on those Subjects, residing in Britain, who have no Vote in any Election for Members of Parliament. Suppose the British Government to publish a formal Declaration, That they have a Right to give and grant away the Property of many Millions of their Fellow-Subjects, without, or against their Consent, and for the declared Purpose of saving their own, what Idea would this Proceeding give Foreigners of the hitherto justly boasted Equity of the British Government? But does it make any Difference, as to Equity, whether the Individuals taxed without, or against their own Consent, be Subjects residing on the Eastern, or on the Western Side of the Atlantick? If it does, the Advantage is plainly on the Side of the Tax here supposed; for the Members of the British Parliament, or at least the Majority of them (and the Majority decides) cannot be supposed competent Judges of the Ability of the Colonists to bear Taxes; whereas, they are Judges of the Ability of their Fellow-Subjects resident in Britain.

Again, suppose the Form of Representation was the same in England, as it is in some Parts of America, viz. That every Parish should send so many Deputies to the Assembly of Lawmakers. Suppose each County to exclude one Parish from the Privilege of Representation, and yet to lay Taxes on the unrepresented Parishes, as if they were represented. Suppose the Legislature to declare, that the County of Middlesex has a Right to tax the Parish of Islington, and at the same Time a Right to refuse to admit Deputies from that Parish to the County-Meeting, in which the Contingent for each Parish was settled, could it be reasonably expected that the Inhabitants of the Parish of Islington should contentedly submit to such gross Partiality? Yet this gross Partiality would be more reasonable than the British Parliament’s assuming a Right to tax the unrepresented Colonists, because the Representatives of the other Parishes of Middlesex (and so of the rest) must, at least, be supposed competent Judges of the Abilities of the Inhabitants of Islington.
There is besides the Injustice, a palpable Self-contradiction in the Idea of a Power in the British Parliament, of laying Taxes on the Colonists, without previously new-modelling their whole internal Constitution. All, who know any Thing of the Government of the Colonies, know, that their Provincial Assemblies of Representatives have always had a Power, analagous to that of our House of Commons, of laying Taxes for bearing the Expences of each respective Government. This Constitution, every Body must perceive, is founded on the prime Maxim of all free Government, viz. That no Subject is to be deprived of any Part of his Property, but by his own Consent, given either personally, or by his Representative. Now, I should be glad to learn, from the Grenvillian Theory, what is to be the Business of the provincial Assemblies of Representatives in our Colonies, if the Power of taxing be in the British House of Commons? Is it not evident, that these two Powers are incompatible? How is the Provincial Assembly of New-England, for instance, to lay on a Tax of Half a Crown in the Pound for the most indispensable Exigency, at the same Time that, for aught that is known in New-England, the House of Commons may be laying on a Tax of Seventeen and Six-pence in the Pound? If we may put any Trust in the first Rule in Arithmetick, here is the whole Pound gone. And, that severe and disproportionate Taxes may be laid on the Colonies by a British Parliament, is naturally to be expected from the Difficulty of their coming at a competent Knowledge of the internal Circumstances of the Colonies, of which more hereafter. If it should be proposed, in order to support this double Power of Taxation, that there be an indemnifying Power vested in the American Assemblies, of retorting Taxes on Britain to the Value of the Excess above what the Colonists can fairly bear; besides, that this would, at best, be but a clumsy Kind of doing and undoing, perhaps our being subjected to Taxation by the Americans, might not be relished here. But, to be serious, as their Constitution is at present, it seems impossible to reconcile, with any clear Ideas of Business, a double Power of Taxing. And, to take away from their Assemblies the Power of Taxing, in order to place it solely in the House of Commons, would indeed effectually remove the glaring Absurdity of a Self-contradictory double Power of Taxation; but I should be glad to know, if the Grenvillians have an Idea of a State of more absolute Slavery, as to Property, than this new Constitution would, without Representation in Parliament, bring our American Fellow-Subjects into.
On this Head a most pitiful Set of Defences has been fabricated by the Enemies of Liberty: As, that the City of London is sometimes taxed by her own internal Government, to raise Funds for the particular Uses of the City, while she is subject to the general Taxes imposed by Parliament. If the Colonies sent, as London does, Members to Parliament, and their Provincial Assemblies were accidental subordinate Courts, like the Common-Council of London, and not, as at present, their whole Representation, there might be some Comparison attempted. As their Constitution is now, no two Things can well be imagined more specifically different.
Again, it has been urged, in Defence of the new Taxing-Policy, that it pleads Precedent. The Post-Office, say the Grenvillians, is, in Effect, a Tax upon America, which they never have complained of. The advancing of so frivolous an Apology for their Injustice and Oppression, shews the Difficulty they find in patching up an indefensible Cause. They might as well have drawn a Defence of their Policy from the establishing of Tolls at Turnpikes. Will any Man of common Sense attempt to force a Comparison between a Regulation evidently for the Benefit of the Colonies, and of our Merchants trading with them, and whose Effect is a saving of Money to the Colonists, and a Scheme, whose declared Intention is, to take from them their Property, and to increase the Revenue at their Expence, and contrary to their Inclination? Our American Fellow-Subjects have never shewn the least Inclination to dispute the Power of the British Government to make Regulations either for the Mother Country, or the Colonies, so they were found to be of general Advantage. Nay, it will appear by the Sequel that they have suppressed innumerable Complaints they might have been expected to utter with a very audible Voice. They have all along acquiesced in our regulating all the Branches of the national Commerce, and among the rest, that between the Mother Country and themselves. None of the Dummers, the Otises, the Dickensons, the Dulaneys, dispute, in their Writings, the Power of the British Government over the Colonies. All they oppose is the illegal and unconstitutional Application of it. The Colonists admire and celebrate the British Form of Government, and only wish to enjoy the Benefit of it. They have, in their implicit Confidence, (for, with Anguish, I write it, their confidence once was implicit) in the Wisdom of Parliament, taken for granted, that no Regulation was likely ever to be made by it, which should materially injure them; as the known Consequence of injuring or impoverishing the Colonies, must be heavy Damage to the Mother Country.
Another flimsy Apology for the Right of taxing the unrepresented Colonies, is drawn from the Tenor of some of their Charters. And here likewise the Grenvillians throw away a great deal of Toil and Sweat on an ungrateful and barren Argument. Their Manner of handling the Point is alone a sufficient Indication of the cruel Hardships with which they find themselves pinched. Sometimes they argue, that the Charters granted the original Colonists are the only Foundation on which their respective Constitutions rest; and that some of those Charters mention a Power in the Parliament to lay Taxes on the Colonists. Ergo, the late Innovations are unexceptionable. Now, the Truth is, this Mode of Expression occurs only in one or two Charters, and plainly means nothing more than a Security against regal Taxation, too common in those despotic Times.
Nor does it exclude the Idea of Representation, so essential to the Justice of a Claim of the Power of Taxation, but leaves it unmentioned; which was to be expected from the Spirit of those Ages, when Liberty was not understood. But the Grenvillians, in arguing from the Charters when they find themselves beaten out of this Hold, immediately shift Ground, and cry out, “The Kings who granted the Colony Charters over-stretched their Power.” Nothing less than the whole Legislature could reach so far. Ergo, the Colonists Immunities are what the Legislature pleases to make them. How far the Power of Kings reaches I will not enquire; nor is the Dispute, whether the Colonists are to be Free or Slaves, to be decided by a Set of hasty Charters huddled up by a Set of Kings, who did not understand Liberty, and given to a Set of People who understand it as little. Were we to be determined by what was done in those arbitrary Times, the Liberties of the Mother Country, as well as of the Colonies, would soon be shaken from their Foundation.


Title: From Benjamin Franklin to Joseph Galloway, 11 January 1770
From: Franklin, Benjamin
To: Galloway, Joseph

Dear Sir,
London, Jan. 11. 1770
Since mine of the 9th. past, I have received your Favour of Nov. 8. with the Bill for £500. Wharton on Whitmore; for which I am greatly oblig’d to the Assembly; and to you for your kind Care in so speedily remitting it.

I am perfectly of the same Sentiments with you, that the old Harmony will never be restor’d between the two Countries, till some Constitution is agreed upon and establish’d, ascertaining the relative Rights and Duties of each. And I am pleas’d to find that the same Opinion begins to prevail here. Several have mention’d it to me in Conversation, and last Week, a Member of Parliament in high Station and in great Esteem with the present Ministry, came to visit me, and intimated that such a Constitution was now thought of, and in his Opinion a Plan might be form’d agreable to both Sides, if three or four reasonable Men were to meet for that purpose, and discuss coolly the contended Points; which he wish’d me to think of, and hop’d I would not leave England till something of the kind was done.
It has been understood for some time past, that the Duties on Glass, Paper and Colours, were to be repeal’d early this Session, agreable to the Promises in Lord Hillsborough’s circular Letter; and the Duty on Tea in consequence of a Petition from the East India Company. This, if accomplished, will open the Trade, I suppose, between Britain and our Province; But it will still remain shut with Boston, if the other Revenue Acts are not also repealed. It is talk’d, however, that a severe Law will be pass’d with the Repeal, to make it highly penal to enter into such Agreements not to import Goods from hence, as have lately taken Place in America. A Paragraph you will observe in the King’s Speech seems intended to introduce this new Law; which if brought forward we shall use our Endeavours to obstruct: tho’ I do not see how such a Law could be executed; and I rather think it would tend to make such Agreements more general, and more resolutely adher’d to. In the House of Peers on the first Day of the Session, Lords Chatham, Cambden, and Shelbourne, spoke strongly for the Rights of America, insisted that we had been unjustly treated by the late Laws, and that we had a Right to use the only peaceable Means in our Power, (those Agreements) for Self-Defence: They also, as I hear, gave their Opinion, that all the Revenue Laws for America ought to be repealed; commended our publick Virtue and the Spirit of Liberty that existed so universally among us; and said they gloried in being considered as the Friends of such a People. Col. Barré and others in the House of Commons spoke well to the same purpose. The ministerial Strength, however, is so great, that nothing will be done against their Inclination; and it is to be hoped, that by degrees they may be brought to favour us; especially as domestic Faction seem to give them Trouble enough at present.
To forward the Repeal, I have represented, that if they intend it at all, it should be done immediately; otherwise the Spring Trade will be too late and lost. I have also been in the City among the Merchants, to get them to present to the Ministry or Parliament, an Account of the Amount of their conditional Orders; in order to obviate an Opinion industriously propagated here, that the Trade still goes on, tho’ covertly. Whether they will do it or not, I cannot yet say, many of them being so averse to the Ministry as to be unwilling to have anything to do with them. We may possibly know better in a few Days what is to be expected from Parliament; and I shall send you by the first Opportunity what occurs of Importance. The internal Divisions of this Kingdom, tho’ bad in themselves, may perhaps produce some Advantage to us, or at least lessen the Mischiefs some threaten us with; but it is rather to be wish’d Government would relieve and treat us fairly from Principles of Wisdom and Equity.
I observe from the Committee’s Letter, that the Instructions relating to the Change of Government in our Province, and other Points, are continued. We shall never lose Sight of them; but use our best Endeavours, and seize every Opportunity, of fulfilling the Desires of our Constituents; attending at the same time to the prudent Cautions given us with regard to some Matters of the greatest Importance.
Be pleased to communicate this Letter to the Committee, assuring them of my Respect and most faithful Services. With great and sincere Esteem I am, Dear Sir, Your most obedient humble Servant
B Franklin
Joseph Galloway Esqr  Speaker.