Britain to _seek_ amalgamation while yet it could be had! But
Franklin meant what he said, and he repeated it more than once, very
earnestly. He resented that temper, of which he saw so much on every
side, and which he clearly described by saying that every individual in
England felt himself to be "part of a sovereign over America."

Men of a different habit of mind of course reiterated the shallow and
threadbare nonsense about "virtual," or as it would be called nowadays
constructive, representation of the colonies, likening them to
Birmingham, Manchester, and other towns which sent no members to
Parliament--as if problems in politics followed the rule of algebra,
that negative quantities, multiplied, produce a positive quantity. But
Franklin concerned himself little about this unreasonable reasoning,
which indeed soon had an effect eminently disagreeable to the class of
men who stupidly uttered it. For it was promptly replied that if there
were such large bodies of unrepresented Englishmen, it betokened a wrong
state of affairs in England also. If English freeholders have not the
right of suffrage, said Franklin, "they are injured. Then rectify what
is amiss among yourselves, and do not make it a justification of more
wrong."[24] Thus that movement began which in time brought about
parliamentary reform, another result of this American disturbance which
was extremely distasteful to that stratum of English society which was
most strenuous against the colonists.

[Note 24: See also to same purport, _Works_, iv. 157.]

Still another point which demanded elucidation was, why Parliament
should not have the power to lay internal taxes just as much as to levy
duties. Grenville said: "External and internal taxes are the same in
effect, and only differ in name;" and the authority of Parliament to lay
external taxes had never been called in question. Franklin's examiners
tried him upon this matter: Can you show that there is any kind of
difference between the two taxes, to the colony on which they are laid?
He answered: "I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is
a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first
cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered for
sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that
price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay for it. But an
_internal_ tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not
laid by