Benjamin Franklin: “The trade of the West Indies is one of our most valuable trades.”

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.

The rest depends on a man's own industry and virtue.

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.

That the colonies have no representatives in parliament.