[97] These letters have often been copied into our public prints. Mr. Strahan, the correspondent, is printer to the king, and now representative in parliament for Malmsbury in Wiltshire. An intimacy of long standing had subsisted between him and Dr. Franklin. B. V.
It was the father of the present Mr. Strahan, who is also king's-printer, and member of parliament. The friendship, which so long subsisted between Mr. Strahan and Dr. Franklin, the latter, in 1775, formally abjured, in a letter addressed to Mr. Strahan, which will be found in the order of its date, in a subsequent part of this work. _Editor._
[98] In the year 1767, for the express purpose of raising a revenue in America, glass, red-lead, white-lead, painters' colours, paper, and _tea_ (which last article was subject to various _home_-impositions) became charged by act of parliament, with new _permanent_ duties payable in the American ports. Soon after, in the same sessions, (the East-India Company promising indemnification for the experiment) a _temporary_ alteration was made with respect to the _home_ customs or excise upon certain teas, in the hope that a deduction in the nominal imposition, by producing a more extended consumption, would give an increased sum to the exchequer. Mr. Strahan, comparing only the _amounts_ of the imposed American duty, and the deducted home duty, determines that the Americans had suffered no new imposition. The Americans it seems, thought otherwise. Had we established this precedent for a revenue, we thought we had every thing to hope; yet we affect surprise, when the colonies avoided an acquiescence which by parity of reasoning gave _them_ every thing to fear. B. V.
Being just returned to town from a little excursion, I find yours of the 21st, containing a number of queries, that would require a pamphlet to answer them fully. You, however, desire only brief answers, which I shall endeavour to give.
Previous to your queries, you tell me, that "you apprehend his majesty's servants have now in contemplation, 1st, To relieve the colonists from the taxes complained of; 2d, To preserve the honour, the dignity, and the supremacy of the British legislature over all his majesty's dominions." I hope your information is good; and that what you suppose to be in contemplation will be carried into execution, by repealing all the laws, that have been made for raising a revenue in America by authority of parliament without the consent of the people there. The honour and dignity of the British legislature will not be hurt by such an act of justice and wisdom. The wisest councils are liable to be misled, especially in matters remote from their inspection. It is the persisting in an error, not the correcting it, that lessens the honour of any man or body of men. The supremacy of that legislature, I believe, will be best preserved by making a very sparing use of it; never but for the evident good of the colonies themselves, or of the whole British empire; never for the partial advantage of Britain to their prejudice. By such prudent conduct, I imagine, that supremacy may be gradually strengthened, and in time fully established; but otherwise, I apprehend it will be disputed, and lost in the dispute. At present the colonies consent and submit to it, for the regulations of general commerce; but a submission to acts of parliament was no part of their original constitution. Our former kings governed their colonies, as they had governed their dominions in France, without the participation of British parliaments. The parliament of England never presumed to interfere in that prerogative, till the time of the great rebellion, when they usurped the government of all the king's other dominions, Ireland, Scotland, &c. The colonies that held for the king, they conquered by force of arms, and governed afterwards as conquered countries; but New England, having not opposed the parliament, was considered and treated as a sister-kingdom, in amity with England (as appears by the Journals, _March 10, 1642_.)