Benjamin Franklin

Hence it happens, that established manufactures are hardly ever lost, but by foreign conquest, or by some eminent interior fault in manners or government; a bad police oppressing and discouraging the workmen, or religious persecutions…

There is, in short, scarce a single instance in history of the contrary, where manufactures have once taken firm root.

And there will always be, in the conveniencies of life, the politeness, the pleasures, the magnificence of the reigning country, many other attractions besides those of learning, to draw men of substance there, where they can (apparently…

People who have property in a country which they may lose, and privileges which they may endanger, are generally disposed to be quiet, and even to bear much, rather than hazard all.

While the government is mild and just, while important civil and religious rights are secure, such subjects will be dutiful and obedient.

The Romans well understood that policy, which teaches the security arising to the chief government from separate states among the governed; when they restored the liberties of the states of Greece (oppressed but united under Macedon) by an…

It is a modest word, this check, for massacring men, women, and children.

I know how little many good-natured persons are affected by the distresses of people at a distance, and whom they do not know.

There are even those, who, being present, can sympathize sincerely with the grief of a lady on the sudden death of a favourite bird; and yet can read of the sinking of a city in Syria with very little concern.

The murder of husbands, of wives, of brothers, sisters and children, whose pleasing society has been for some time enjoyed, affects deeply the respective surviving relations; but grief for the death of a child just born is short, and…

A country, fully inhabited by any nation, is no proper possession for another of different languages, manners, and religion.

As to the greater safety of our trade by the possession of Guadaloupe, experience has convinced us, that in reducing a single island, or even more, we stop the privateering business but little.

Privateers still subsist, in equal if not greater numbers, and carry the vessels into Martinico, which before it was more convenient to carry into Guadaloupe.

The trade of the West Indies is one of our most valuable trades.

Our possessions there deserve our greatest care and attention.

It is a common error, that we cannot fill our provinces or increase the number of them, without draining this nation of its people.

All this might have happened, as soon as America's distaste of the sovereign had exceeded the fear of the foreigner; a circumstance frequently seen possible in history, and which our ministers took care should not be wanting.

That it carries the gold and silver out of the province, and so ruins the country; as experience has shewn, in every colony where it has been practised in any great degree.

That every medium of trade should have an intrinsic value, which paper-money has not.

Gold and silver are therefore the fittest for this medium, as they are an equivalent; which paper never can be.

That in the middle colonies, where the credit of the paper-money has been best supported, the bills have never kept to their nominal value in circulation; but have constantly depreciated to a certain degree, whenever the quantity has been…

The truth is, that the balance of their trade with Britain being greatly against them, the gold and silver are drawn out to pay that balance; and then the necessity of some medium of trade has induced the making of paper-money, which could…

Thus, if carrying out all the gold and silver ruins a country, every colony was ruined before it made paper-money.--But, far from being ruined by it, the colonies that have made use of paper-money have been, and are all, in a thriving…

When colonies are so different in their circumstances, a regulation, that is not inconvenient to one or a few, may be very much so to the rest.

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.