No! we will pay nothing on compulsion.

"For how, and in what manner, do you prove your allegations? Why, truly, by breaking forth into riots and insurrections, and by committing every kind of violence that can cause trade to stagnate, and industry to cease."

The Americans never brought riots as arguments. It is unjust to charge two or three riots in particular places upon all America. Look for arguments in the petitions and remonstrances of the assemblies, who detest riots, of which there are ten in England for one in America.

"Perhaps you meant to insinuate (though it was prudence in you not to speak out), that the late act was ill-contrived and ill-timed, because it was made at a juncture when neither the French were in your rear to frighten, nor the English fleets and armies on your front to force you to a compliance."

It seems a prevailing opinion in England, that fear of their French neighbours would have kept the colonies in obedience to the Parliament, and that, if the French power had not been subdued, no opposition would have been made to the Stamp Act. A very groundless notion. On the contrary, had the French power continued, to which the Americans might have had recourse in the case of oppression from Parliament, Parliament would not have dared to oppress them. It was the employment of fifty thousand men by land, and a fleet on the coast, for five years, to subdue the French only. Half the land army were provincial. Suppose the British twenty-five thousand had acted by themselves, with all the colonies against them; what time would it have taken to subdue the whole?

"Or shall we give you entirely up, unless you will

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submit to be governed by the same laws as we are, and pay something towards maintaining yourselves?"

The impudence of this language to colonies, who have ever maintained themselves, is astonishing! Except the late attempted colonies of Nova Scotia and Georgia, no colony ever received maintenance in any shape from Britain; and the grants to those colonies were mere jobs for the benefit of ministerial favorites, English or Scotchmen.

"Whether we are to give you entirely up, and, after having obliged you to pay your debts, whether we are to have no further connexion with you as a dependent state or colony "

Throughout all America English debts are more easily recovered than in England, the process being shorter and less expensive, and land subject to execution for the payment of debts. Evidence, taken ex parte in England, to prove a debt, is allowed in their courts, and during the whole dispute there was not one single instance of any English merchant's meeting with the least obstruction in any process or suit commenced there for that purpose.

"Externally, by being severed from the British empire, you will be excluded from cutting logwood in the bays of Campeachy and Honduras, from fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, on the coast of Labrador, or in the bay of St. Lawrence, &c."

We have no use for logwood, but to remit it for your fineries. We joined in conquering the Bay of St. Lawrence and its dependencies. As to the Sugar Islands, if you won't allow us to trade with' them, perhaps you will allow them to trade with us; or do you intend to starve them? Pray keep your bounties, and let us hear no more of them; and your troops, who never protected us against the savages, nor are fit for such

a service; and the three hundred thousand pounds, which you seem to think so much clear profit to us, when, in fact, they never spend a penny among us, but they have for it from us a penny's worth. The manufactures they buy are brought from you; the provisions we could, as we always did, sell elsewhere for as much money. Holland, France, and Spain would all be glad of our custom, and pleased to see the separation.

"And, after all, and in spite of any thing you can do, we in Britain shall still retain the greatest part of your European trade, because we shall give a better price for many of your commodities, than you can have anywhere else, and we shall sell to you several of our manufactures, especially in the woollen-stuff and metal way, on cheaper terms."

Oho! Then you will still trade with us! But can that be without our trading with you? And how can you buy our oil, if we catch no whales?

"The leaders of your parties will then be setting all their engines to work, to make fools become the dupes of fools."

Just as they do in England.

"And instead of having troops to defend them, and those troops paid by Great Britain, they must defend themselves, and pay themselves."

To defend them! To oppress, insult, and murder them, as at Boston!

"Not to mention, that the expenses of your civil governments will be necessarily increased; and that a fleet more or less must belong to each province for guarding their coasts, ensuring the payment of duties, and the like."

These evils are all imaginations of the author. The same were predicted to the Netherlands, but have never yet happened. But suppose all of them together,

and many more, it would be better to bear them than submit to parliamentary taxation. We might still have something we could call our own. But, under the power claimed by Parliament, we have not a single sixpence.

The author of this pamphlet, Dean Tucker, has always been haunted with the fear of the seat of government being soon to be removed to America. He has, in his Tracts on Commerce, some just notions in matters of trade and police, mixed with many wild and chimerical fancies totally impracticable. He once proposed, as a defence of the colonies, to clear the woods for the width of a mile all along, behind them, that the Indians might not be able to cross the cleared part without being seen; forgetting that there is a night in every twenty-four hours.

WALPOLE'S GRANT.

Some time after Dr. Franklin went to England on his second mission, as agent for Pennsylvania, a project was formed in America, originating with Sir William Johnson, Governor Franklin, and others, for settling a new colony in the Ohio country. They wrote to Dr. Franklin, requesting him to use his influence to procure a grant from the crown for this purpose. A company was formed, at the head of which was Mr. Thomas Walpole, a banker in London, and hence the tract of land solicited by them went under the name of Walpole's Grant.

The following extracts are from letters written by Dr. Franklin to his son on this subject. The copy, from which they are printed, was found among Sir William Johnson's papers. It has been surmised, from vague expressions in Franklin's published correspondence, that this was some private affair, in which he was seeking the interest of himself and his son. These extracts will show such a suspicion to be perfectly groundless. The truth is, he had no more concern in it, than any other proprietor. The grant was to be divided into seventy-two shares, owned by a large number of persons. The petitions were made publicly to the Board of Trade, and to the King in Council, by Mr. Walpole and his associates. The project encountered much opposition, and met with delay; but it was finally approved, and the grant ratified in the year 1772. The revolutionary troubles, then coming on, defeated the execution of the plan. In the progress of soliciting the grant, Lord Hillsborough wrote for the Board of Trade a Report against it. Dr. Franklin's answer to this Report is one of the ablest efforts of his pen. See the paper, entitled Settlement on the Ohio River, in the present volume; and Washington's Writings, Vol. II. p. 483. - EDITOR.

May 10th, 1766. I like the project of a colony in the Illinois country, and will forward it to my utmost here.

August 25th, 1766.

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I can now only add, that I

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