Benjamin Franklin: “To strangers he was cold and reserved; but where he was intimate, no man indulged to more pleasantry and good humour.”

I apprehend, that excluding the people of the colonies from all share in the choice of the grand council will give extreme dissatisfaction; as well as the taxing them by act of parliament, where they have no representation.

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

But above all this, the state and circumstances of our settlements render such a measure not only proper and eligible, but absolutely necessary.

The establishing of new colonies westward on the Ohio and the lakes (a matter of considerable importance to the increase of British trade and power, to the breaking that of the French, and to the protection and security of our present…