Benjamin Franklin [1755 
Q. From the thinness of the back settlements 
would not the Stamp Act be extremely inconvenient 
to the inhabitants, if executed? 
A. To be sure it would; as many of the inhabi- 
tants could not get stamps when they had occasion 
for them without taking long journeys, and spending 
perhaps three or four pounds, that the crown might 
get sixpence. 
Q. Are not the colonies, from their circumstances, 
very able to pay the stamp duty? 
A. In my opinion there is not gold and silver 
enough in the colonies to pay the stamp duty for one 
year. 
Q. Don’t you know that the money arising from 
the stamps was all to be laid out in America? 
A. I know it is appropriated by the act to the 
American service; but it will be spent in the con- 
quered colonies, where the soldiers are; not in the 
colonies that pay it. 
Q. Is there not a balance of trade due from the 
colonies where the troops are posted, that will bring 
back the money to the old colonies? 
I The Stamp Act said: ‘‘that the Americans shall have no com- 
merce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither pur- 
chase, nor grant, nor recover debts; they shall neither marry nor 
make their wills, unless they pay such and such sums’ in specie for 
the stamps which must give validity to the proceedings. The opera- 
tion of such a tax, had it obtained the consent of the people, appeared 
inevitable; and its annual productiveness, on its introduction, was 
estimated, by its proposer in the House of Commons at the committee 
for supplies, at one hundred thousand pounds sterling. The colonies 
being already reduced to the necessity of having paper money, by 
sending to Britain the specie they collected in foreign trade, in order 
to make up for the deficiency of their other returns for British manu- 
factures, there were doubts whether there could remain specie sufficient 
to answer the tax. 
80 2s