CHAPTER III.

Jealousy of English Manufacturers--Origin of the Stamp Act-Opposition

of Franklin-Effect of its Passage in America-Names a Stamp Distributor-Unpleasant Consequences-Correspondence with Dean Tucker.

1764-1766.

To the editor of a newspaper, dated Monday, 20 May, 1765.*

Sir,-In your paper of Wednesday last, an ingenious correspondent who calls himself The SPECTATOR, and dates from Pimlico, under the guise of good will to the news-writers,

* In expelling the French from Canada, and leaving the English sole masters of America, the peace of 1763 rather complicated than simplified the relations of the mother country with her colonies. The fear of the French had made the colonists submit to much injustice from England for the sake of her protection, while England was not only pleased with the advantageous markets she found in her American possessions, but greatly dependent upon the colonial militia for their defence.

As soon, however, as the war with France terminated, the English shippers and manufacturers began to complain of transatlantic competition in their business. Even Mr. Pitt, who had boldly defended the political liberties of the colonies, did not scruple to declare that if they were to manufacture so much as a horseshoe, they should feel the whole weight of British power. Selfishness and ignorance invented, and the press gave currency to, the most absurd stories about the danger to British industry from these sources.

The character of these inventions and the mischievous effect they were working upon the public mind may be inferred from this specimen of the communications to the press, with which Franklin strove to counteract them. No one knew better when ridicule was the most powerful weapon of controversy.-ED. 38*

449

whom he calls a “ useful body of men in this great city," has, in my opinion, artfully attempted to turn them and their works into ridicule, wherein, if he could succeed, great injury might be done to the public as well as to these good people.

Supposing, Sir, that the “ we hears" they give us of this or the other intended tour or voyage of this and the other great personage were mere inventions, yet they at least offer us an innocent amusement while we read, and useful matter for conversation when we are disposed to con

verse.

Englishmen, Sir, are too apt to be silent when they have nothing to say, and too apt to be sullen when they are silent; and, when they are sullen, to hang themselves. But, by these we hears, we are supplied with abundant funds for discourse. We discuss the motives for such voyages, the probability of their being undertaken, and the practicability of their execution. Here we display our judgment in politics, our knowledge of the interests of princes, and our skill in geography, and (if we have it) show our dexterity in argumentation. In the mean time, the tedious hour is killed, we go home pleased with the applauses we have received from others, or at least with those we give to ourselves; we sleep soundly, and live on, to the comfort of our families. But, Sir, I beg leave to say, that all the articles of news that seem improbable are not mere inventions. Some of them, I can assure you on the faith of a traveller, are serious truths. And here, quitting Mr. Spectator of Pimlico, give me leave to instance the various accounts the news-writers have given us, with so much honest zeal for the welfare of Poor Old England, of the establishing manufactures in the colonies to the prejudice of those of the kingdom. It is objected by superficial readers, who yet pretend to some knowledge of those countries, that such establishments are not only improbable, but impossible, for that their sheep have but little wool, not in the whole sufficient for a pair of stockings a year to each inhabitant; that, from the universal dearness of labor among them, the working of iron and other materials, except in a few coarse instances, is impracticable to any advantage.

Dear Sir, do not let us suffer ourselves to be amused with such groundless objections. The very tails of the American sheep are so laden with wool, that each has a little car or wagon on four little wheels, to support and keep it from trailing on the ground. Would they caulk their ships, would they even litter their horses with wool, if it were not both plenty and cheap? And what signifies the dearness of labor, when an English shilling passes for five and twenty? Their engaging three hundred silk throwsters here in one week for New York was treated as a fable, because, forsooth, they have “no silk there to throw.” Those, who make this objection, perhaps do not know, that, at the same time the agents from the King of Spain were at Quebec to contract for one thousand pieces of cannon to be made there for the fortification of Mexico, and at New York engaging the usual supply of woollen floor-carpets for their West India houses, other agents from the emperor of China were at Boston treating about an exchange of raw silk for wool, to be carried in Chinese junks through the Straits of Magellan.

And yet all this is as certainly true, as the account said to be from Quebec, in all the papers of last week, that the inhabitants of Canada are making preparations for a cod and whale fishery this “summer in the upper Lakes." Ignorant people may object, that the upper Lakes are fresh, and that cod and whales are salt water fish ; but let them know, Sir, that cod, like other fish when attacked by their enemies, fly into any water where they can be safest ; that whales, when they have a mind to eat cod, pursue them wherever they fly; and that the grand leap of the whale in the chase up the Falls of Niagara is esteemed, by all who have seen it, as one of the finest spectacles in nature. Really, Sir, the world is grown too incredulous. It is like the pendulum ever swinging from one extreme to another. Formerly every thing printed was believed, because it was in print. Now things seem to be disbelieved for just the very same reason. Wise men wonder at the present growth of infidelity. They should have considered, when they taught the people to doubt the authority of newspapers and the truth of predictions in the almanacs, that the next step might be a disbelief of the well vouched accounts of ghosts and witches, and doubts even of the truths of the Creed.

Thus much I thought it necessary to say in favor of an honest set of writers, whose comfortable living depends on collecting and supplying the printers with news at the small price of sixpence an article, and who always show their regard to truth, by contradicting in a subsequent article such as are wrong, for another sixpence, to the great satisfaction and improvement of us coffee-house students in history and politics, and all future Livys, Rapins, Robertsons, Humes, and Macaulays, who may be sincerely inclined to furnish the world with that rara avis, a true history. I am, Sir, your humble servant,

A TRAVELLER.

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Sir, I have attentively perused the paper person known, con

you sent me, and am of opinion, that the cerning the

measure it proposes, of an union with the probability and effects of colonies, is a wise one; but I doubt it will a union with hardly be thought so here, till it is too late to ain, and con- attempt it. The time has been, when the cerning

colonies would have esteemed it a great adrepeal or suspension of the vantage, as well as honor to be permitted to Stamp Act,

send members to Parliament; and would have don, Jan. 6, asked for that privilege, if they could have had 1766.

the least hopes of obtaining it. The time is now come, when they are indifferent about it, and will probably not ask it, though they might accept it is offered them; and the time will come, when they will certainly refuse it. But if such an union were now established (which methinks it highly imports this country to establish) it would probably subsist as long as Britain shall continue a nation. This people, however, is too proud, and too much despises the Americans, to bear the thought of admitting them to such an equitable participation in the government of the whole.

Then the next best thing seems to be, leaving them in the quiet enjoyment of their respective constitutions; and when money is wanted for any public service, in which they ought to bear a part, calling upon them by requisitorial letters from the crown (according to the long-established custom) to grant such aids as their loyalty shall dictate, and their abilities permit. The very sensible and benevolent author of that paper seems not to have known, that such a constitutional custom subsists, and has always hitherto been practised in America; or he would not have expressed himself in this manner; “It is evident, beyond a