.. Benjamin Franklin [1766
so; that, every year during the war, requisitions were
made by the crown on the colonies for raising money
and men; that accordingly they made more extraordinary
 efforts, in proportion to their abilities, than
Britain did; that they raised, paid, and clothed, for
five or six years, near twenty-five thousand men,
besides providing for other services, as building forts,
equipping guard-ships, paying transports, &c. And
that this was more than their fair proportion is not
merely an opinion of mine, but was the judgment of
government here, in full knowledge of all the facts;
for the then ministry, to make the burden more
equal, recommended the case to Parliament, and obtained
 a reimbursement to the Americans of about
two hundred thousand pounds sterling every year;
which amounted only to about two fifths of their expense;
 and great part of the rest lies still a load of
debt upon them; heavy taxes on all their estates,
real and personal, being laid by acts of their assemblies
 to discharge it, and yet will not discharge it in
many years.
While, then, these burdens continue; while Britain
restrains the colonies in every branch of commerce
and manufactures that she thinks interferes with her
own; while she drains the colonies, by her trade with
them, of all the cash they can procure by every art
and industry in any part of the world, and thus keeps
them always in her debt (for they can make no law to
discourage the importation of your to them ruinous
superfluities, as you do the superfluities of France;
since such a law would immediately be reported

Eo.) 2