Benjamin Franklin: “Can any thing less than a military force carry the stamp act into execution?”

That it would be treating them as a conquered people, and not as true British subjects.

We are obliged to carry a great part of our produce directly to Britain; and where the duties laid upon it lessen its price to the planter, or it sells for less than it would in foreign markets, the difference is a tax paid to Britain.

An ancient sage valued himself upon this, that though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great city of a little one.

The gaining of the back Indian trade from the French, by the navigation of the lakes, &c. would of itself greatly weaken our enemies:--it being now their principal support, it seems highly probable, that in time they must be subjected to…