1 Benjamin Franklin [1753 
Americans, that it has been supposed not a single 
man among them has been convinced of his error, 
even by that act of Parliament. 
The person, then, who first projected to lay aside 
the accustomed method of requisition, and to raise 
money on America by stamps, seems not to have 
acted wisely, in deviating from that method (which 
the colonists looked upon as constitutional), and 
thwarting unnecessarily the fixed prejudices of so 
great a number of the King’s subjects. It was not, 
however, for want of knowledge that what he was 
about to do would give them offence; he appears 
to have been very sensible of this, and apprehensive 
that it might occasion some disorders; to prevent 
or suppress which, he projected another bill that 
was brought in the same session with the Stamp 
Act, whereby it was to be made lawful for military 
officers in the colonies to quarter their soldiers in 
private houses. 
This seemed intended to awe the people into a 
compliance with the other act. Great opposition, 
however, being raised here against the bill, by the 
agents from the colonies and the merchants trading 
thither (the colonists declaring that under such a 
power in the army no one could look on his house as 
his own, or think he had a home, when soldiers might 
be thrust into it and mixed with his family at the 
pleasure of an officer), that part of the bill was dropt; 
but there still remained a clause, when it passed into 
a law, to oblige the several assemblies to provide 
quarters for the soldiers, furnishing them with firing, 
bedding, candles, small beer or rum, and sundry other