.. 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 extraor- 
dinary 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 ob- 
tained a reimbursement to the Americans of about 
two hundred thousand pounds sterling every year; 
which amounted only to about two fifths of their ex- 
pense; 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 assem- 
blies 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