128 Benjamin Franklin [1768
numbers of men, as were suitable to their respective
circumstances.
The colonies being accustomed to this method,
have from time to time granted money to the crown,
or raised troops for its service, in proportion to their
abilities; and during all the last war beyond their
abilities, so that considerable sums were returned
them yearly by Parliament, as they had exceeded
their proportion.
Had this happy method of requisition been continued
 (a method that left the King’s subjects in
those remote countries the pleasure of showing their
zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recommended
 themselves to their sovereign by the liberality
 of their voluntary grants), there is no doubt but
all the money that could reasonably be expected to
be raised from them in any manner might have been
obtained, without the least heart-burning, offence,
or breach of the harmony of affections and interests
that so long subsisted between the two countries.
It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising
 sovereignty over different kinds of people, to
have some regard to prevailing and established opinions
among the people to be governed, wherever such
opinions might, in their effects, obstruct or promote
public measures. If they tend to obstruct public
service, they are to be changed, if possible, before we
attempt to act against them; and they can only be
changed by reason and persuasion. But if public
business can be carried on without thwarting those
opinions; if they can be, on the contrary, made sub-