Their affection and respect for this country, while they were treated with kindness, produced an almost implicit obedience to the instructions of the prince, and even to acts of the British parliament, though the right of binding them by a legislature, in which they were unrepresented, was never clearly understood.
Franklin discusses the relationship between the American colonies and Britain, emphasizing the colonies' obedience when treated kindly despite their lack of representation.
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Our legal method of compulsion is by imprisonment: the Indians cannot and will not imprison one another; and if we attempt to imprison them, I apprehend it would be generally disliked by the nations, and occasion breaches.
Each union would separately be weaker than when joined by the whole, obliged to exert more force, be oppressed by the expence, and the enemy less deterred from attacking it.
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And as Canada is chiefly supported by that trade, if it could be drawn into the hands of the English (as it might be if the Indians were supplied on moderate terms, and by honest traders appointed by and acting for the public) that alone…
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