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Q. But must not he pay an additional postage for the distance to such inland town?

A. No.

Q. Can the post-master answer delivering the letter, without being paid such additional postage?

A. Certainly he can demand nothing, where he does

no service.

Q. Suppose a person, being far from home, finds a letter in a post-office directed to him, and he lives in a place to which the post generally goes, aud the letter is directed to that place, will the post-master deliver him the letter, without his paying the postage receivable at the place to which the letter is directed?

A. Yes; the office cannot demand postage for a letter that it does not carry, or farther than it does carry it. Q. Are not ferrymen in America obliged by act of parliament, to carry over the posts without pay?

A. Yes.

Q. Is not this a tax on the ferrymen?

A. They do not consider it as such, as they have an advantage from persons travelling with the post.

Q. If the stamp-act should be repealed, and the crown should make a requisition to the colonies for a sum of money, would they grant it?

A. I believe they would.

Q. Why do you think so?

A. I can speak for the colony I live in; I had it in in. struction from the assembly to assure the ministry, that as they always had done, so they should always think it their duty, to grant such aids to the crown as were suit. able to their circumstances and abilities, whenever called upon for that purpose, in the usual constitutional manner: and I had the honour of communicating this instruction to that honourable gentleman then minister.

Q. Would they do this for a British concern, as suppose a war in some part of Europe, that did not affect

them?

A. Yes, for any thing that concerned the general interest. They consider themselves as part of the whole.

Q. What is the usual constitutional manner of calling on the colonies for aids?

A. A letter from the secretary of state.

Q. Is this all you mean; a letter from the secretary of state?

A. I mean the usual way of requisition, in a circular letter from the secretary of state, by his majesty's command, reciting the occasion, and recommending it to the colonies to grant such aids as become their loyalty, and were suitable to their abilities.

Q. Did the secretary of state ever write for money for the crown?

A. The requisitions have been to raise, clothe, and pay men, which cannot be done without money.

Q. Would they grant money alone, if called on?

A. In my opinion they would, money as well as men, when they have money, or can make it.

Q. If the parliament should repeal the stamp-act, will the assembly of Pennsylvania rescind their resolutions? A. I think not.

Q. Before there was any thought of the stamp-act, did they wish for a representation in parliament?

A. No.

Q. Don't you know that there is, in the Pennsylvanian charter, an express reservation of the right of parliament to lay taxes there?

A. I know there is a clause in the charter, by which the king grants that he will levy no taxes on the inhabitants, unless it be with the consent of the assembly, or by act of parliament.

Q. How then could the assembly of Pennsylvania assert, that laying a tax on them by the stamp-act was an infringement of their rights?

A. They understand it thus: by the same charter, and otherwise, they are intitled to all the privileges and liberties of Englishmen; they find in the great charters, and the petition and declaration of rights, that one of the privileges of English subjects is, that they are not to be taxed but by their common consent; they have therefore relied upon it, from the first settlement of the province, that the parliament never would, nor could, by colour, of that clause in the charter, assume a right of taxing them, till it had qualified itself to exercise such right, by admitting representatives from the people to be taxed, who ought to make a part of that common consent,

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

A. The common rights of Englishmen, as declared by Magna Charta, and the petition of right, all justify it. Q. Does the distinction between internal and external taxes exist in the words of the charter?

A. No, I believe not.

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

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

Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pennsylvania assembly say all taxes?

A. If they do, they mean only internal taxes; the same words have not always the same meaning here and in the colonies. By taxes they mean internal taxes; by duties they mean customs; these are their ideas of the language. Q. Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachu sett's Bay assembly?

Being born and bred in one of the countries, and having lived long and made many agreeable connections of friendship in the other: I wish all prosperity to both: but I have talked, and written so much and so long on the subject, that my acquaintance are weary of hearing, and the public of reading any more of it, which begins to make me weary of talking and writing; especially as I do not find that I have gained any point, in either country, except that of rendering myself suspected, by my impar tiality; in England, of being too much an American, and in America of being too much an Englishman. Your opinion, however, weighs with me, and encourages me to try one effort more, in a full, though concise state of facts accompanied with arguments drawn from those facts; to be published about the meeting of parliament, after the holidays.

If any good may be done I shall rejoice; but at present I almost despair.

Have you ever seen the barometer so low as of late? The 22d instant mine was at 28, 41, and yet the weather fine and fair.

With sincere esteem, I am, dear friend,

Your, affectionately,

B. FRANKLIN.

LETTER FROM LORD HOWE TO DR. FRANKLIN.

Eagle, June the 20th, 1776.

I cannot, my worthy friend, permit the letters and parcels, which I have sent (in the state I received them) to be landed, without adding a word upon the subject of the injurious extremities in which our unhappy disputes have engaged us.

You will learn the nature of my mission, from the official dispatches which I have recommended to be forwarded by the same conveyance. Retaining all the earnestness I ever expressed, to see our differences accommodated; I shall conceive, if I meet with the disposition in the colonies which I was once taught to expect, the most flattering hopes. of proving serviceable in the objects of the king's paternal solicitude, by promoting the establishment of lasting peace and union with the colonies. But if the deeprooted prejudices of America, and the necessity of preventing her trade from passing into foreign channels, must keep us still a divided people, I shall, from every private as well as public motive, most heartily

DR. FRANKLIN'S ANSWER TO LORD HOWE. 273

lament, that this is not the moment wherein those great objects of my ambition are to be attained; and that I am to be longer deprived of an opportunity, to assure you personally of the regard with which I am,

Your sincere and faithful humble servant,

HOWE.

P. S. I was disappointed of the opportunity I expected for sending this letter, at the time it was dated; and have ever since been prevented by calms and contrary winds from getting here, to inform General Howe of the commission with which I have the satisfaction to be charged, and of his being joined in it.

DR. FRANKLIN'S ANSWER TO LORD

MY LORD,

HOWE.

Philadelphia, July 30, 1776.

I received safe the letters your lordship so kindly forwarded to me, and beg you to accept my thanks.

The official dispatches to which you refer me, contain nothing more than what we had seen in the act of parliament, viz. "Offers of pardon upon submission; which I was sorry to find; as it must give your lordship pain to be sent so far on so hopeless a business.

-

Directing pardons to be offered to the colonies, who are the very parties injured, expresses indeed that opinion of our ignorance, basenes, and insensibility, which your nninformed and proud nation has long been pleased to entertain of us; but it can have no other effect than that of encreasing our resentments. It is impossible we should think of submission to a government, that has, with the most wanton barbarity and cruelty, burned our defenceless towns in the midst of winter; excited the savages to massacre our (peaceful) farmers; and our slaves to murder their masters; and is even now *) bringing foreign mercenaries to deluge our settlements with blood. These atrocious injuries have extinguished every spark of affection for that parent country we once held so dear: but were it possible for us to forget and forgive them, it

*) An army of foreign mercenaries had about this time, arrived at Staten Island and New York; hired from one of those Princes who have never hesitated to sacrifice the best blood of their subjects for British gold.

Editor.

minished at the edges. Turn your attention therefore first to your remotest provinces; that, as you get rid et them, the next may follow in order.

II. That the possibility of this separation may alway exist, take special care the provinces are never incorpo rated with the mother-country; that they do not enjoy the same common rights, the same privileges in commerce, and that they are governed by severer laws, all of your enacting, without allowing them any share in the choice of the legislators. By carefully making and preserving such distinctions, you will (to keep to my simile of the cake) act like a wise gingerbread-baker; who, to facilitate a division, cuts his dough half through in those places, where, when baked, he would have it broken to pieces.

III. Those remote provinces have perhaps been acquired. purchased, or conquered, at the sole expence of the setlers or their ancestors. without the aid of the mothercountry. If this should happen to increase her strength, by their growing numbers, ready to join in her wars; her commerce, by their growing demand for her manufactures; or her naval power, by greater employment for her ships and seamen, they may probably suppose some merit in this, aud that it entitles them to some favour you are therefore to forget it all, or resent it, as if they had done you injury. If they happen to be zealous whigs friends of liberty, nurtured in revolution principles; remem ber all that to their prejudice, and contrive to punish it for such principles, after a revolution is thoroughly established, are of no more use; they are even odious and abominable.

IV. However peaceably your colonies have submitted to your government, shown their affection to your interests, and patiently borne their grievances, you are to suppose them always inclined to revolt, and treat them accordingly. Quarter troops among them, who, by their insolence, may provoke the rising of mobs, and by their bullets and bayonets suppress them. By this means, like the husband who uses his wife ill from suspicion, you may in time convert your suspicions into realities.

V. Remote provinces must have governors and judges, to represent the royal person and execute every where the delegated parts of his office and authority. You, ministers, know, that much of the strength of government depends on the opinion of the people, and much of that opinion on the choice of rulers placed immediately over them. If you send them wise and good men for governors, who study the interest of the colonists, and advance their prosperity; they will think their king wise and good, and tha he wishes the welfare of his subjects. If you send them learned and upright men for judges, they will think him a lover of justice. This may attach your provinces more to his government. You are therefore to be carefu' w you recommend for those offices. If you can fi digals, who have ruined their fortunes, broken game y

.en.

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