Volume I Part 12 (1/2)

Signed, GEORGE WAshi+NGTON, _President of the United States_

WRITINGS OF FRANKLIN

_The Examination of Dr Franklin before the British House of Commons, relative to the Repeal of the American Stamp-act_[18]

1766, Feb 3 Benjamin Franklin, Esq, and a number of other persons, were ”ordered to attend the committee of the whole House of Commons, to whom it was referred to consider farther the several papers relative to America, which were presented to the House by Mr Secretary Conway, &c”

_Q_ What is your name and place of abode?

_A_ Franklin, of Philadelphia

_Q_ Do the A 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 e 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 hen the peace wasout with the Indians, a fresh load of debt was incurred; and the taxes, of course, continued longer by a ne

_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 enereatly impoverished, are able to pay very little tax And therefore, in consideration of their distresses, our late tax laws do expressly favour those counties, excusing the sufferers; and I suppose the saovernement of the _postoffice_ in Aeneral 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 sta, in many cases, to much more than that of the stamps themselves

_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 et sta journeys, and spending perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown et sixpence

_Q_ Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, very able to pay the staold and silver enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one year