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 Pennsylvania charter, an express reservation of the right of parliament to lay taxes there?

4. 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 entitled 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 color 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 com

mon 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.

VOL. II.

2 B

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 shew 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 Pennsylvania 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 language.

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

A. I have.

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

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

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

A. I suppose that by the word imposition they do not intend to express duties to be laid on goods imported, as regulations of commerce.

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

A. They may mean many things; as impressing of men, or of carriages, quartering troops on private houses, and the

like there may be great impositions that are not properly

taxes.

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

1. I have answered that.

Q. Are all parts of the colonies equally able to pay taxes? A. No, certainly; the frontier parts, which have been ravaged by the enemy, are greatly disabled by that means; and therefore, in such cases, are usually favored in our tax-laws.

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

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

Q. Would the repeal of the stamp-act be any discouragement of your manufactures?—Will the people that have begun to manufacture decline it?

A. Yes, I think they will; especially if, at the same time, the trade is opened again, so that remittances can be easily made. I have known several instances that make it probable. In the war before last, tobacco being low, and making little remittance, the people of Virginia went generally into familymanufactures. Afterwards, when tobacco bore a better price, they returned to the use of British manufactures. So fullingmills were very much disused in the last war in Pennsylvania, because bills were then plenty, and remittances could easily be made to Britain for English cloth and other goods,

Q. If the stamp-act should be repealed, would it induce the assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of parliament to tax them, and would they erase their reso lutions ?

A. No, never.

Q. Is there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions?

4. None that I know of: they will never do it unless compelled by force of arms.

Q. Is there a power on earth that can force them to erase them?

A. No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opinions.

Q. Do they consider the post-office as a tax, or as a regulation?

A. Not as a tax, but as a regulation and conveniency : every assembly encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy, by grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and the people have always paid the postage.

Q. When did you receive the instructions you mentioned? A. I brought them with me, when I came to England, about fifteen months since.

Q. When did you communicate that instruction to the minister?

A. Soon after my arrival,-while the stamping of America was under consideration, and before the bill was brought

in.

Q. Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco, or in the manufactures?

A. In tobacco, to be sure.

Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans?

4. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.

Q. What is now their pride?

A. To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make

new ones.

Withdrew.

See Appendix, p. 583.

APPENDIX.

No. v.

Account of Governor Hutchinson's Letters, and the Examination of Dr. Franklin before a Committee of the British Privy Council.

[Referred to, Part iii. p. 354, and seq. of MEMOIRS OF THE

GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON, lieutenant-governor Andrew Oliver, Charles Paxton, Esq., Nathaniel Rogers, Esq., and Mr. G.Roome, having sent from Boston certain representations and informations to Thomas Whately, Esq. member of parliament, private secretary to that Mr. George Grenville, who when in office was the father of the stamp act, and afterwards one of the lords of trade; these letters were placed by some friend to the interests of America, in the hands of Dr. Franklin, who, as an agent for the colonies, in discharge of his duty, had them conveyed back to Boston. The assembly of Massachusetts were so much exasperated, that they returned attested copies of the letters to England, accompanied by a petition and remonstrance, for the removal of governor Hutchinson, and lieutenant-governor Andrew Oliver, from their posts. The council of Massachusetts likewise, on their own part, entered into thirteen resolves, in tendency and import similar to the petition of the assembly; five of which resolves were unanimous, and only one of them had so many as three dissentients. In consequence of the assembly's petition, the fol- . lowing proceedings and examination took place.