is
not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences? _A._ A total
loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this
country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and
affection. _Q._ How can the commerce be affected? _A._ You will find
that if the act is not repealed, they will take a very little of your
manufactures in a short time. _Q._ Is it in their power to do without
them? _A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries,
mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, etc., with a
little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without
until they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last,
which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately."
This view of the willingness and capacity of the colonists to forego
English importations he elsewhere elaborated fully. The English
merchants knew to their cost that he spoke the truth.

With reference to the enforcement of claims in the courts, he was asked
whether the people would not use the stamps "rather than remain ...
unable to obtain any right or recover by law any debt?" He replied: "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 would rather they should
remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act."

A few weeks later he wrote: "I have some little property in America. I
will freely spend nineteen shillings in the pound to defend my right of
giving or refusing the other shilling. And, after all, if I cannot
defend that right, I can retire cheerfully with my family into the
boundless woods of America, which are sure to afford freedom and
subsistence to any man who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." The
picture of Dr. Franklin, the philosopher, at the age of sixty-one,
"cheerfully" sustaining his family in the wilderness by the winnings of
his rod and his rifle stirs one's sense of humor; but the paragraph
indicates that he was in strict harmony with his countrymen, who were
expressing serious resolution with some rhetorical exaggeration, in the
American fashion.

The main argument of the colonies, that under the British constitution
there could be no taxation without representation, was of course
introduced into the examination; and Franklin seized the occasion to
express his theory very ingeniously