lution setting forth, that it was their opinion that the House be moved, that leave be given to bring in a bill to repeal the Stamp Act."

The account of the examination was first published in 1767, without the name of printer or publisher. It was translated into French, and widely circulated in Europe. It has been frequently reprinted in both the English and French languages. - EDITOR.

Q. WHAT is your name, and place of abode ?
A. Franklin, of Philadelphia.

Q. Do the Americans pay any considerable taxes among themselves?

A. Certainly many, and very heavy taxes.

Q. What are the present taxes in Pennsylvania, laid by the laws of the colony?

A. There are taxes on all estates real and personal; a poll tax; a tax on all offices, professions, trades, and businesses, according to their profits; an excise on all wine, rum, and other spirits; and a duty of ten pounds per head on all negroes imported, with some other

duties.

Q. For what purposes are those taxes laid?

A. For the support of the civil and military establishments of the country, and to discharge the heavy debt contracted in the last war.

Q. How long are those taxes to continue?

A. Those for discharging the debt are to continue till 1772, and longer, if the debt should not be then all discharged. The others must always continue.

Q. Was it not expected that the debt would have been sooner discharged?

A. It was, when the peace was made with France and Spain. But, a fresh war breaking out with the Indians, a fresh load of debt was incurred; and the taxes, of course, continued longer by a new law.

Q. Are not all the people very able to pay those taxes?

A. No. The frontier counties, all along the continent, having been frequently ravaged by the enemy and greatly impoverished, are able to pay very little tax. And therefore, in consideration of their distresses, our late tax laws do expressly favor those counties, excusing the sufferers; and I suppose the same is done in other governments.

Q. Are not you concerned in the management of the post-office in America?

A. Yes. I am deputy-postmaster-general of North America.

Q. Don't you think the distribution of stamps by post to all the inhabitants very practicable, if there was no opposition?

A. The posts only go along the seacoasts; they do not, except in a few instances, go back into the country; and, if they did, sending for stamps by post would occasion an expense of postage amounting in many cases to much more than that of the stamps themselves.

Q. Are you acquainted with Newfoundland?

Q. Do you know whether there are any post-roads on that island?

A. I have heard that there are no roads at all, but that the communication between one settlement and another is by sea only.

Q. Can you disperse the stamps by post in Canada? A. There is only a post between Montreal and Quebec. The inhabitants live so scattered and remote from each other in that vast country, that posts cannot be supported among them, and therefore they cannot get stamps per post. The English colonies, too, along the frontiers are very thinly settled.

Q. From the thinness of the back settlements, would not the Stamp Act be extremely inconvenient to the inhabitants, if executed?

A. To be sure it would; as many of the inhabitants could not get stamps when they had occasion for them without taking long journeys, and spending perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown might get sixpence.

Q. Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, very able to pay the stamp duty ?

A. In my opinion there is not gold and silver enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year.*

Q. Don't you know that the money arising from the stamps was all to be laid out in America?

A. I know it is appropriated by the act to the American service; but it will be spent in the conquered colonies, where the soldiers are; not in the colonies that pay it.

Q. Is there not a balance of trade due from the colonies where the troops are posted, that will bring back the money to the old colonies?

A. I think not. I believe very little would come back. I know of no trade likely to bring it back. I think it would come, from the colonies where it was

The Stamp Act said, "that the Americans shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase, nor grant, nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums" in specie for the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The operation of such a tax, had it obtained the consent of the people, appeared inevitable; and its annual productiveness, on its introduction, was estimated, by its proposer in the House of Commons at the committee for supplies, at one hundred thousand pounds sterling. The colonies being already reduced to the necessity of having paper money, by sending to Britain the specie they collected in foreign trade, in order to make up for the deficiency of their other returns for British manufactures, there were doubts whether there could remain specie sufficient to answer the tax. — B. V.

spent, directly to England; for I have always observed, that in every colony the more plenty the means of remittance to England, the more goods are sent for, and the more trade with England carried on.

Q. What number of white inhabitants do you think there are in Pennsylvania?

A. I I suppose there may be about one hundred and sixty thousand.

૨.

A.

What number of them are Quakers?
Perhaps a third.

Q. What number of Germans?

A. Perhaps another third; but I cannot speak with certainty.

Q. Have any number of the Germans seen service, as soldiers, in Europe?

A. Yes, many of them, both in Europe and America. Q. Are they as much dissatisfied with the stamp duty as the English?

A. Yes, and more; and with reason, as their stamps are, in many cases, to be double.*

Q. How many white men do you suppose there are in North America?

A. About three hundred thousand, from sixteen to sixty years of age.†

* The Stamp Act provided, that a double duty should he laid “where the instrument, proceedings, &c., shall be engrossed, written, or printed within the said colonies and plantations, in any other than the English language." This measure, it is presumed, appeared to be suggested by motives of convenience, and the policy of assimilating persons of foreign to those of British descent, and preventing their interference in the conduct of law business till this change should be effected. It seems, however, to have been deemed too precipitate, immediately to extend this clause to newly conquered countries. An exemption therefore was granted, in this particular, with respect to Canada and Grenada, for the space of five years, to be reckoned from the commencement of the duty. See the Stamp Act. - B. V.

Strangers excluded, some parts of the northern colonies doubled their numbers in fifteen or sixteen years; to the southward they were

Q. What may be the amount of one year's imports into Pennsylvania from Britain?

A. I have been informed that our merchants compute the imports from Britain to be above five hundred thousand pounds.

Q. What may be the amount of the produce of your province exported to Britain?

A. It must be small, as we produce little that is wanted in Britain. I suppose it cannot exceed forty thousand pounds.

Q. How then do you pay the balance?

A. The balance is paid by our produce carried to the West Indies, and sold in our own islands, or to the French, Spaniards, Danes, and Dutch; by the same produce carried to other colonies in North America, as to New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Carolina, and Georgia; by the same, carried to different parts of Europe, as Spain, Portugal, and Italy. In all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange, or commodities that suit for remittance to Britain; which, together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the freights made by their ships, centre finally in Britain to discharge the balance, and pay for British manufactures continually used in the provinces, or sold to foreigners by our traders.

Q. Have you heard of any difficulties lately laid on the Spanish trade?

A. Yes; I have heard, that it has been greatly obstructed by some new regulations, and by the English men-of-war and cutters stationed all along the coast in America.

longer; but, taking one with another, they had doubled, by natural generation only, once in twenty-five years. Pennsylvania, including strangers, had doubled in about sixteen years.-B. V.