1 Benjamin Franklin [* 766
tion, object to the Parliament’s right of external
taxation?
A. They never have hitherto. Many arguments
have been lately used here to show them that there is
no difference, and that if you have no right to tax
them internally, you have none to tax them externally
 or make any other law to bind them. At
present they do not reason so; but in time they may
possibly be convinced by these arguments.
Q. Do not the resolutions of the Pennsylvania assembly
 say “all taxes?”
A. If they do, they mean only internal taxes.
The same words have not always the same meaning
here and in the colonies. By taxes they mean internal
 taxes; by duties they mean customs. These are
their ideas of the language.
QO. Have you not seen the resolutions of the Massachusetts
 Bay assembly?
A. 1have.
0. Do they not say that neither external nor internal
 taxes can be laid on them by Parliament?
A. 1 don’t know that they do; I believe not.
Q. If the same colony should say neither tax nor
imposition could be laid, does not that province hold
the power of Parliament can lay neither?
A. Isuppose that by the word émposition they do
not intend to express duties to be laid on goods imported
 as regulations of commerce.
(Q. What can the colonies mean, then, by imposition
 as distinct from taxes?
A. They may mean many things, as impressing
of men or of carriages, quartering troops on private

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