2. You say, they do not object to the right of parliament, in laying duties on goods to be paid on their importation: now, is there any kind of difference between a duty on the importation of goods, and an excise on their consumption?

A, Yes; a very material one: an excise, for the reasons I have just mentioned, they think you can have no right to lay within their country. But the sea is yours; you maintain, by your fleets, the safety of navigation in it, and keep it clear of pirates: you may have therefore a natural and equitable right to some toll or duty on merchandises carried through that part of your dominions, towards defraying the expence you are at in ships to maintain the safety of that carriage.

2. Does this reasoning hold in the case of a duty laid on the produce of their lands exported? And would they not then object to such a duty?

A. If it tended to make the produce so much dearer abroad, as to lessen the demand for it, to be sure they would object to such a duty; not to your right of laying it, but they would complain of it as a burthen, and petition you to lighten it.

2. Is not the duty paid on the tobacco exported, a duty of that kind?

A. That, I think, is only on tobacco carried coastwise, from one colony to another, and appropriated as a fund for supporting the college at Williamsburg, in Virginia.

2. Have not the assemblies in the West Indies the same natural rights with those in North America?

A. Undoubtedly.

2. And is there not a tax laid there on their sugars exported?

A. I am not much acquainted with the West Indies; but the duty of four and a half per cent. on sugars exported was, I believe, granted by their own assemblies*.

4 See the note to Lord Howe's letter to our author.

2. How much is the poll-tax in your province laid on unmarried men?

A. It is I think, fifteen shillings, to be paid by every single freeman, upwards of twenty-one years old.

2. What is the annual amount of all the taxes in Pennsylvania?

A. I suppose about 20,000/. sterling.

2. Supposing the stamp act continued and enforced, do you imagine that ill-humour will induce the Americans to give as much for worse manufactures of their own, and use them, preferable to better of ours?

A. Yes, I think so.

People will pay as freely to gratify one passion as another, their resentment as their pride. 2. Would the people at Boston discontinue their trade? A. The merchants are a very small number compared with the body of the people, and must discontinue their trade, if nobody will buy their goods.

2. What are the body of the people in the colonies? A. They are farmers, husbandmen, or planters.

2. Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot? A. No; but they would not raise so much. They would manufacture more, and plow less.

2. Would they live without the administration of justice in civil matters, and suffer all the inconveniencies of such a situation for any considerable time, rather than take the stamps, supposing the stamps were protected by a sufficient force, where every one might have them?

A. I think the supposition impracticable, that the stamps should be so protected as that every one might have them. The act requires sub-distributors to be appointed in every county town, district, and village, and they would be necessary. But the principal distributors, who were to have had a considerable profit on the whole, have not thought it worth while to continue in the office; and I think it impossible to find sub-distributors fit to be trusted, who, for the trifling profit that must come to their share, would incur the odium, and run the hazard that would attend it; and if they could be found, I think it impracticable to protect the stamps in so many distant and remote places.

2. But in places where they could be protected, would not the people use them, rather than remain in such a situ ation, unable to abtain any right, or recover by law, any debt?

A. It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law, than submit to the stamp act. They will be debts of honor. It is my opinion the people will either continue in that situation, or find some way to extricate themselves, perhaps by generally agreeing to proceed in the courts without stamps.

2. What do you think a sufficient military force to protect the distribution of the stamps in every part of America?

A. A very great force, I can't say what, if the disposition of America is for a general resistance.

2. What is the number of men in America able to bear arms, or of disciplined militia?

A. There are, I suppose, at least. [Question objected to. He withdrew. Called in again.] 2. Is the American stamp act an equal tax on the country?

A. I think not.

2. Why so?

A. The greatest part of the money must arise from lawsuits for the recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of people, who were too poor easily to pay their debts. It is therefore a heavy tax on the poor, and a tax upon them for being poor.

2. But will not this increase of expence be a means of lessening the number of law-suits?

A. I think not; for as the costs all fall upon the debtor, and are to be paid by him, they would be no discouragement to the creditor to bring his action.

2. Would it not have the effect of excessive usury? A. Yes; as an oppression of the debtor.

2. How many ships are there laden annually in North America with flax-seed for Ireland?

A. I cannot speak to the number of ships, but I know, that in 1752 ten thousand hogsheads of flax-seed, each containing seven bushels, were exported from Philadelphia to Ireland. I suppose the quantity is greatly increased since that time, and it is understood, that the exportation from New York is equal to that from Philadelphia.

2. What becomes of the flax that grows with that flaxseed?

A. They manufacture some into coarse, and some into a middling kind of linen.

2. Are there any slitting-mills in America?s

A. I think there are three, but I believe only one at present employed. I suppose they will all be set to work, if the interruption of the trade continues.

2. Are there any fulling-mills there?

A. A great many.

2. Did you never hear, that a great quantity of stockings were contracted for, for the army, during the war, and manufactured in Philadelphia ?

A. I have heard so...

2. If the stamp-act should be repealed, would not the Americans think they could oblige the parliament to repeal every external tax-law now in force?

A. It is hard to answer questions of what people at such a distance will think.

2. But what do you imagine they will think were the motives of repealing the act?

A. I suppose they will think, that it was repealed from a conviction of its inexpediency; and they will rely upon it, that while the same inexpediency subsists, you will never attempt to make such another.

2. What do you mean by its inexpediency?

A. I mean its inexpediency on several accounts, the po verty and inability of those who were to pay the tax, the

general discontent it has occasioned, and the impracticability of enforcing it.

2. If the act should be repealed, and the legislature should show its resentment to the opposers of the stampact, would the colonies acquiesce in the authority of the legislature? What is your opinion they would do?

A. I don't doubt at all, that if the legislature repeal the stamp-act, the colonies will acquiesce in the authority.

2. But if the legislature should think fit to ascertain its right to lay taxes, by any act laying a small tax, contrary to their opinion, would they submit to pay the tax?

A. The proceedings of the people in America have been considered too much together. The proceedings of the assemblies have been very different from those of the mobs, and should be distinguished, as having no connection with each other. The assemblies have only peaceably resolved what they take to be their rights: they have taken no measures for opposition by force, they have not built a fort, raised a man, or provided a grain of ammunition, in order to such opposition. The ring-leaders of riots, they think ought to be punished: they would punish them themselves, if they could. Every sober, sensible man, would wish to see rioters punished, as otherwise peaceable people have no security of person or estate; but as to an internal tax, how small soever, laid by the legislature here on the people there, while they have no representatives in this legislature, I think it will never be submitted to: they will oppose it to the last: they do not consider it as at all necessary for you to raise money on them by your taxes; because they are, and always have been, ready to raise money by taxes among themselves, and to grant large sums, equal to their abilities, upon requisition from the crown. They have not only granted equal to their abilities, but, during all the last war, they granted far beyond their abilities, and beyond their proportion with this country (you yourselves being judges) to the amount of many hundred thousand pounds; and this they did freely and readily, only on a sort of promise, from the secretary of state, that it