PART IV.

CHAPTER I.

THE STAMP ACT PASSED.

Ir was in the evening of the tenth of December, 1764, that the agent of Pennsylvania arrived in London. The impending, the inevitable, Stamp Act, he soon found, was the absorbing topic with the colonial agents; with whom he was often in consultation during the next few weeks. By every means his ingenuity could suggest, Dr. Franklin sought to prevent the introduction of a measure, which proved, to use his own language, "the mother of mischiefs." He was powerless. The conferring agents could devise nothing, except to ask an interview with Mr. George Grenville, the head of the administration, who had pledged his word to parliament to bring in a bill for taxing the colonies. The minister consented to see them, and on the second of February, 1765, the agents, four in number, met at his office.

Mr. Grenville received them with official, with Grenvillian polite ness. He was an able man of business, an honest statesman, and singularly devoted to the duties of his place. "He took public duty,” remarks Mr. Burke, "not as a duty which he was to fulfill, but as a pleasure he was to enjoy." "But with no small study of detail, he did not seem to have his view carried to the total circuit or. our affairs." It has been remarked of his family, even in recent generations, that they are, at once, guileless and reserved, and both in an uncommon degree. Mr. Grenville listened patiently on this occasion to the arguments of the American agents, who urged their well-worn plea, that if the colonies were to be taxed, the tax should be imposed by their own parliaments, not the parliament of Great Britain, in which they were not represented, and which knew not their ability nor their burdens.

Mr. Grenville said, as he had said in substance a year before:

"I take no pleasure in bringing upon myself colonial resentments. It is the duty of my office to manage the revenue. I have really been made to believe that, considering the whole circumstances of the mother country and the colonies, the latter can and ought to pay something to the common cause. I know of no better way than that now pursuing to lay such a tax. If you can tell me of a

better, I will adopt it."

Dr. Franklin spoke. He reminded the minister of the ancient mode of raising supplies in the colonies for the service of the king, a mode which had always proved effectual. He placed in Mr. Grenville's hands the resolution unanimously passed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania, in the summer of 1764, pledging that province to do all that it could to aid the king whenever the king should ask aid in the usual and constitutional manner.

"Can

Mr. Grenville then asked a question which showed that he did not, or would not, understand Dr. Franklin. His question, however, seems for a moment to have nonplused the agents. you agree," he asked, "on the proportion each colony should raise ?" They were obliged to admit that they could not. The minister pursuing his advantage said, that the stamp duty would adjust itself both to the present wealth and future increase of the colonies. It would be, he thought, at all times and in all places, a fair and equal tax. Upon this, the Americans returned to their main position, and pointed out the danger to the liberties of the colonies which would arise from their being taxed by a distant body in which they had no representative to explain their circumstances, or plead their cause. If parliament could impose taxes upon them, they feared that the colonial assemblies would decline in importance and soon cease to be called together.

"No such thing is intended," replied Mr. Grenville. "I have pledged my word for offering the stamp bill to the House, and I cannot forego it: they will hear all objections, and do as they please. I wish you may preserve moderation in America. Resentments indecently expressed on one side of the water will naturally produce resentments on the other. You cannot hope to get any good by a controversy with the mother country. With respect to this bill, her ears will always be open to every remonstrance expressed in a becoming manner.'

* Bancroft's "History of the United States," V., 230.

The Americans then withdrew. The bill was introduced into parliament, and passed by a very great majority a few weeks after. In the House of Commons there were only fifty voices against it, and in the House of Lords there appears to have been no division on the question. The king scrawled his signature to the bill when he was suffering under his first attack of insanity. Not a man in England, not Franklin, foresaw either the immediate or the remote consequences of the act. Englishmen were deceived by the smallness of the amount proposed to be raised by the stamp duty. Englishmen have made sublime sacrifices to principle, but they appear slow to believe that any other people can. The sum expected to result from the stamp duty was a hundred thousand pounds a year, which it was supposed America would grumble at for a while, but never think of resisting. Franklin evidently shared this opinion. He wrote to a friend in Philadelphia a few weeks after the passage of the act: "I took every step in my power to prevent the passing of the Stamp Act. But the tide was too strong against us. The nation was provoked by American claims of legislative independence, and all parties joined in resolving by this act to settle the point. We might as well have hindered the sun's setting. That we could not do. But since it is down, my friend, and it may be long before it rises again, let us make as good a night of it as we can. We may still light candles. Frugality and industry will go a great way towards indemnifying us. Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments."

This plainly shows that Franklin did not anticipate nor desire the resistance of his countrymen to the act. If his advice had been asked, he might have urged an agitation for repeal, but he certainly would have counseled strict submission. Soon after the passage of the act, Dr. Franklin, in taking leave of an American friend, said, "Go home and tell your countrymen to get children as fast as they can." We are not yet strong enough to resist.

From our earliest childhood we have all been in the habit of hearing and reading about this terrible stamp act, but, probably, few of the readers of these pages have ever seen it, or are acquainted with its provisions. The act was curiously adapted to puzzle and disgust a people accustomed to simple modes of procedure. It contained fifty-five articles, and imposed taxes on fifty-four classes of objects. It laid a tax of threepence upon every piece of

parchment or paper on which should be printed or written a legal declaration, plea, replication, rejoinder, demurrer, or other pleading usual in any common court of the colonies. Upon a special bail bond, the duty was two shillings. Upon any chancery pleading, one shilling and sixpence. Upon each copy of the same, threepence. Upon every document relating to proceedings in ecclesiastical courts, one shilling. Copy of the same, sixpence. Upon every presentment to a benefice, two pounds. Upon a college. degree, two pounds. Upon admiralty court documents, one shilling. Copies, sixpence. Upon appeals, writs of error, and similar papers, ten shillings. Upon various other writs, no longer in use, five shillings. Upon judgments and decrees of court, four shillings. Upon a common affidavit, summons, or subpoena, one shilling. Bill of lading, fourpence. Letters of marque, one pound. Upon an appointment to an office worth twenty pounds a year, ten shillings; if worth more than twenty pounds a year, four pounds. Upon every grant or privilege bearing the seal or sign manual of a governor, six pounds, Liquor licenses, four pounds. Wine licenses, four pounds. A license to sell both wine and liquor, three pounds. Letters of administration, five shillings. Bond to secure payment of ten pounds or less, sixpence; twenty pounds, one shilling; forty pounds, one shilling and sixpence. Warrant for surveying one hundred acres of land, sixpence; two hundred acres, one shilling; three hundred and twenty acres, one shilling and six pence. Deeds and conveyances, from one shilling and six pence to five shillings. Leases, contracts and covenants, two shillings and sixpence. Warrant for auditing a public account, five shillings. Mortgage, two shillings and threepence. Pack of cards, one shilling. Pair of dice, ten shillings. Newspaper on half a sheet of paper, one half penny; whole sheet, one penny. Pamphlets equal to six sheets octavo, one shilling. Advertisements, two shillings each. Almanacs, twopence. Translations of any document, twice the duty charged upon the original. Upon premiums paid by apprentices for learning their trade, sixpence in the pound, if the premium did not exceed fifty pounds; if more than fifty pounds, one shilling in the pound.

The act concluded with a novel and vague provision as follows: "Finally, the produce of all the above-mentioned duties shall be paid into his Majesty's treasury; and there held in reserve to be

used from time to time by the parliament, for the purpose of dofraying the expense necessary for the defense, protection, and security of the said colonies and plantations."

Such was the nature of the wedge that rent an empire asunder. A few days after the passage of the Stamp Act, the colonial agents were summoned to Mr. Grenville's office by a circular note from the minister's protégé and secretary, Mr. William Whately. The great man did not appear on this occasion; his desires being made known to the agents by his secretary. What transpired at this meeting, has been made the occasion of calumnies against Dr. Franklin, which, to this day, are sometimes repeated in print. He has himself related the particulars of the interview:

"Mr. Whately acquainted us that Mr. Grenville was desirous to make the execution of the act as little inconvenient and disagreeable to America as possible; and therefore did not think of sending stamp officers from this country, but wished to have discreet and reputable persons appointed in each province from among the inhabitants, such as would be acceptable to them; for, as they were to pay the tax, he thought strangers should not have the emolument. Mr. Whately therefore wished us to name for our respective colonies, informing us that Mr. Grenville would be obliged to us for pointing out to him honest and responsible men, and would pay great regard to our nominations. By this plausible and apparently candid declaration, we were drawn in to nominate; and I named for our province, Mr. (John) Hughes, saying, at the same time, that I knew not whether he would accept it, but if he did, I was sure he would execute the office faithfully. I soon after had notice of his appointment. We none of us, I believe, foresaw or imagined that this compliance with the request of the minister would or could have been called an application of ours, and adduced as a proof of our approbation of the act we had been opposing; otherwise I think few of us would have named at all; I am sure I should not.

Mr. John Hughes, thus recommended to ministerial favor, was an old friend of Dr. Franklin's, a respectable merchant of Philadelphia, and a member of the Assembly.

The affair of the Stamp Act over, Dr. Franklin had leisure to at

* Franklin to Dean Tucker, 1774. Sparks, iv., 122.