The regulations in this plan seem to me to be in general very good: but some few appear to want explanation, or farther consideration.
Clause 3. Is it intended by this clause, to prevent the trade that Indians, living near the frontiers, may choose to carry on with the inhabitants, by bringing their skins into the [English] settlements? This prevention is hardly practicable; as such trade may be carried on in many places out of the observation of government; the frontier being of great extent, and the inhabitants thinly settled in the woods, remote from each other. The Indians too do not every where live in towns sufficiently numerous to encourage traders to reside among them, but in scattered families, here and there, often shifting their situation for the sake of better hunting; and if they are near the English settlements, it would seem to them very hard to be obliged to carry their skins for sale to remote towns or posts, when they could dispose of them to their neighbours, with less trouble, and to greater advantage; as the goods they want for them, are and must be dearer at such remote posts.
4. The colony "laws for regulating Indian affairs or commerce" are the result of long experience, made by people on the spot, interested to make them good; and it would be well to consider the matter thoroughly, before they are repealed, to make way for new untried schemes.
By whom are they to be repealed? By the colony assemblies, or by parliament? Some difficulty will arise here.
13. The districts seem too large for this. The Indians under the care of the northern superintendant, by this plan, border on the colonies of Nova Scotia, Quebec, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pensylvania, Maryland, Virginia: the superintendant's situation, remote from many of these, may occasion great inconvenience, if his consent is always to be necessary in such cases.
14. This seems too much to be done, when the vastness of the district is considered. If there were more districts and smaller, it might be more practicable.
15 and 16. Are these agents or commissaries to try causes where life is concerned? Would it not be better, to send the criminals into some civil well settled government or colony for trial, where good juries can be had?
18. "Chief for the whole tribe; who shall constantly reside with the commissary, &c." Provision must then be made for his maintenance, as particular Indians have no estates, but live by hunting, and their public has no funds or revenues. Being used to rambling, it would perhaps not be easy to find one, who would be obliged to this constant residence; but it may be tried.
22. If the agent and his deputies, and the commissaries, are not to trade, should it not be a part of their oath, that they will have no concern in such trade, directly or indirectly? Private agreements between them and the traders, for share of profits, should be guarded against, and the same care taken to prevent, if possible, private agreements between them and the purchasers of Indian lands.
31. —— "or trading at any other post, &c." This should be so expressed, as to make the master liable for the offence of the servant; otherwise it will have no effect.
33. I doubt the settling of tariffs will be a matter of difficulty. There may be differences of fineness, goodness, and value, in the goods of different traders, that cannot be properly allowed for by general tariffs. And it seems contrary to the nature of commerce, for government to interfere in the prices of commodities. Trade is a voluntary thing between buyer and seller; in every article of which, each exercises his own judgment, and is to please himself. Suppose either Indian or trader is dissatisfied with the tariff, and refuses barter on those terms, are the refusers to be compelled? if not, why should an Indian be forbidden to take more goods for skins than your tariff allows, if the trader is willing to give them, or a trader more skins for his goods, if the Indian is willing to give them? Where there are a number of different traders, the separate desire of each to get more custom will operate in bringing down their goods to a reasonable price. It therefore seems to me, that trade will best find and make its own rates; and that government cannot well interfere, unless it will take the whole trade into its own hands (as in some colonies it does) and manage it by its own servants, at its own risque.
38. I apprehend, that if the Indians cannot get rum of fair traders, it will be a great means of defeating all these regulations, that direct the trade to be carried on at certain posts. The countries and forests are so very large, it is scarce possible to guard every part, so as to prevent unlicensed traders drawing the Indians and the trade to themselves, by rum and other spiritous liquors, which all savage people are so fond of. I think they will generally trade where they can get rum, preferably to where it is refused them; and the proposed prohibition will therefore be a great encouragement to unlicensed traders, and promote such trade. If the commissaries, or officers at the posts, can prevent the selling of rum during the barter for other goods, and until the Indians are about going away, it is perhaps all that is practicable or necessary. The missionaries will, among other things, endeavour to prevail with them to live soberly and avoid drunkenness.
39. The Indian trade, so far as credit is concerned, has hitherto been carried on wholly upon honour. They have among themselves no such things as prisons or confinements for debt. This article seems to imply, that an Indian may be compelled by law to pay a debt of fifty shillings or under. Our legal method of compulsion is by imprisonment: the Indians cannot and will not imprison one another; and if we attempt to imprison them, I apprehend it would be generally disliked by the nations, and occasion breaches. They have such high ideas of the value of personal liberty, and such slight ones of the value of personal property;[73] that they would think the disproportion monstrous between the liberty of a man, and a debt of a few shillings; and that it would be excessively inequitable and unjust, to take away the one for a default in payment of the other. It seems to me therefore best, to leave that matter on its present footing; the debts under fifty shillings as irrecoverable by law, as this article proposes for the debts above fifty shillings. Debts of honour are generally as well paid as other debts. Where no compulsion can be used, it is more disgraceful to be dishonest. If the trader thinks his risque greater in trusting any particular Indian, he will either not do it, or proportion his price to his risque.
44. As the goods for the Indian trade all come from England, and the peltry is chiefly brought to England; perhaps it will be best to lay the duty here, on the exportation of the one, and the importation of the other, to avoid meddling with the question, of the right to lay duties in America by parliament here.
If it is thought proper to carry the trading part of this plan into execution, would it not be well to try it first in a few posts, to which the present colony laws for regulating the Indian trade do not reach; that by experience its utility may be ascertained, or its defects discovered and amended, before it is made general, and those laws repealed to make way for it?—If the Indians find by experience, that they are better used in their trade at the posts, under these regulations, than at other places, may it not make them desirous of having the regulations extended to other places; and when extended, better satisfied with them upon reflection and comparison[74]?
[72] The plan remarked upon was under the consideration of ministry before the close of the year 1766, and (as I am inclined to think) after the commencement of 1765. I can go no nearer as to its date.
It is needless to enter into the particulars of it, as the remarks explain themselves; except perhaps as to the following points. The trade was to be open; there were to be two superintendants to it; in the northern district the trade was to be carried on at fixed posts, in the southern within the Indian town; the military were to have no power over the superintendants or the Indian trade, even in war time, unless with the superintendants' assent, or in great exigencies; the superintendants, by themselves or deputies, were to make annual visitations among the Indians, to see to justice, &c. and their proceedings were to be very summary; and no credit was to be given to the Indians beyond fifty shillings, for no higher debt was to be made recoverable. B. V.
[73] For an account of the sentiments and manners of the Indians, see an essay by our author in a subsequent part of this volume. Editor.
[74] The editor has given the following memorandum of Indian fighting men, inhabiting near the distant posts, in 1762; to indulge the curious in future times. The paper is in Dr. Franklin's hand-writing: but it must not be mistaken as containing a list of the whole of the nations enumerated, but only such part of them as lived near the places described. B. V.
A list of the number of fighting men of the different nations of Indians, through which I (George Croghan) passed, living at or near the several posts.
| Sandusky. | |||
| Wyandotts and Mohickons | 200 | ||
| Detroit. | |||
| Poutauwautimies | 150 | ||
| Ottawas | 250 | ||
| Wyandotts | 250 | ||
| Cheapwas | 320 | 970 | |
| Michilemakinac. | |||
| Ottawas | 250 | ||
| Cheapwas | 400 | 650 | |
| La Bay. | |||
| Meynomeneys | 110 | ||
| Pervons | 360 | ||
| Sax | 300 | ||
| Reynard | 320 | 1090 | |
| St. Joseph's. | |||
| Poutauwautimies | 200 | ||
| Ottawas (some distance) | 150 | 350 | |
| The Miamies. | |||
| Mincamies or Twigtwees | 230 | ||
| Ouitanon. | |||
| Ouitanons | 200 | ||
| Thickapoose | 180 | ||
| Musquiton | 90 | ||
| Pyankishaws | 100 | 570 | |
| Shawanese. | |||
| At the lower town, on Scioto | 240 | ||
| At the upper town, on Muskingum | 60 | 300 | |
| —— | |||
| 4360 |
There is a nation, back of the Bay, who used formerly to come there to visit the French when they were in possession of that post, called La Sieu, computed to be 2500 fighting men; who have this summer sent word to Mr. Gorrell, who commands there, that they purpose paying him a visit late this fall or in the spring.
PAPERS
ON
AMERICAN SUBJECTS,
DURING THE
REVOLUTIONARY TROUBLES.
The waves never rise but when the winds blow.
PROV.
Sir,
As the cause of the present ill humour in America, and of the resolutions taken there to purchase less of our manufactures, does not seem to be generally understood, it may afford some satisfaction to your readers, if you give them the following short historical state of facts.
From the time that the colonies were first considered as capable of granting aids to the crown, down to the end of the last war, it is said, that the constant mode of obtaining those aids was, by requisition made from the crown, through its governors, to the several assemblies, in circular letters from the secretary of state, in his majesty's name, setting forth the occasion, requiring them to take the matter into consideration, and expressing a reliance on their prudence, duty, and affection to his majesty's government, that they would grant such sums, or raise such numbers of men, as were suitable to their respective circumstances.
The colonies, being accustomed to this method, have from time to time granted money to the crown, or raised troops for its service, in proportion to their abilities, and, during all the last war, beyond their abilities; so that considerable sums were returned them yearly by parliament, as they had exceeded their proportion.
Had this happy method of requisition been continued (a method that left the king's subjects in those remote countries the pleasure of showing their zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recommended themselves to their sovereign by the liberality of their voluntary grants) there is no doubt, but all the money that could reasonably be expected to be raised from them in any manner, might have been obtained, without the least heart-burning, offence, or breach of the harmony of affections and interests, that so long subsisted between the two countries.
It has been thought wisdom in a government exercising sovereignty over different kinds of people, to have some regard to prevailing and established opinions among the people to be governed, wherever such opinions might in their effects obstruct or promote public measures. If they tend to obstruct public service, they are to be changed, if possible, before we attempt to act against them; and they can only be changed by reason and persuasion. But if public business can be carried on without thwarting those opinions, if they can be, on the contrary, made subservient to it; they are not unnecessarily to be thwarted, how absurd such popular opinions may be in their nature.
This had been the wisdom of our government with respect to raising money in the colonies. It was well known, that the colonists universally were of opinion, that no money could be levied from English subjects but by their own consent, given by themselves or their chosen representatives; that therefore whatever money was to be raised from the people in the colonies must first be granted by their assemblies, as the money raised in Britain is first to be granted by the house of commons; that this right of granting their own money was essential to English liberty; and that if any man, or body of men in which they had no representative of their choosing, could tax them at pleasure, they could not be said to have any property, any thing they could call their own. But as these opinions did not hinder their granting money voluntarily and amply, whenever the crown, by its servants, came into their assemblies (as it does into its parliaments of Britain or Ireland) and demanded aids; therefore that method was chosen, rather than the hateful one of arbitrary taxes.
I do not undertake here to support these opinions of the Americans; they have been refuted by a late act of parliament, declaring its own power; which very parliament, however, showed wisely so much tender regard to those inveterate prejudices, as to repeal a tax that had militated against them. And those prejudices are still so fixed and rooted in the 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 dropped; 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 articles, at the expence of the several provinces. And this act continued in force when the stamp act was repealed; though, if obligatory on the assemblies, it equally militated against the American principle above mentioned, that money is not to be raised on English subjects without their consent.
The colonies, nevertheless, being put into high good humour by the repeal of the stamp act, chose to avoid a fresh dispute upon the other, it being temporary and soon to expire, never, as they hoped, to revive again; and in the mean time they, by various ways, in different colonies, provided for the quartering of the troops, either by acts of their own assemblies, without taking notice of the act of parliament, or by some variety or small diminution, as of salt and vinegar, in the supplies required by the act; that what they did might appear a voluntary act of their own, and not done in due obedience to an act of parliament, which, according to their ideas of their rights, they thought hard to obey.
It might have been well if the matter had then passed without notice; but a governor having written home an angry and aggravating letter upon this conduct in the assembly of his province, the outed [proposer[76]] of the stamp act and his adherents (then in the opposition) raised such a clamour against America, as being in rebellion, and against those who had been for the repeal of the stamp act, as having thereby been encouragers of this supposed rebellion; that it was thought necessary to enforce the quartering act by another act of parliament, taking away from the province of New York (which had been the most explicit in its refusal) all the powers of legislation, till it should have complied with that act. The news of which greatly alarmed the people every where in America, as the language of such an act seemed to them to be—obey implicitly laws made by the parliament of Great Britain to raise money on you without your consent, or you shall enjoy no rights or privileges at all.
At the same time a person lately in high office[77] projected the levying more money from America, by new duties on various articles of our own manufacture (as glass, paper, painters' colours, &c.) appointing a new board of customs, and sending over a set of commissioners, with large salaries, to be established at Boston, who were to have the care of collecting those duties, which were by the act expressly mentioned to be intended for the payment of the salaries of governors, judges, and other officers of the crown in America; it being a pretty general opinion here, that those officers ought not to depend on the people there, for any part of their support.
It is not my intention to combat this opinion. But perhaps it may be some satisfaction to your readers, to know what ideas the Americans have on the subject. They say then, as to governors, that they are not like princes whose posterity have an inheritance in the government of a nation, and therefore an interest in its prosperity; they are generally strangers to the provinces they are sent to govern; have no estate, natural connection, or relation there, to give them an affection for the country; that they come only to make money as fast as they can; are sometimes men of vicious characters and broken fortunes, sent by a minister merely to get them out of the way; that as they intend staying in the country no longer than their government continues, and purpose to leave no family behind them, they are apt to be regardless of the good-will of the people, and care not what is said or thought of them after they are gone. Their situation at the same time gives them many opportunities of being vexatious; and they are often so, notwithstanding their dependence on the assemblies for all that part of their support, that does not arise from fees established by law, but would probably be much more so, if they were to be supported by money drawn from the people without their consent or good-will, which is the professed design of this new act. That if by means of these forced duties, government is to be supported in America, without the intervention of the assemblies, their assemblies will soon be looked upon as useless; and a governor will not call them, as having nothing to hope from their meeting, and perhaps something to fear from their inquiries into, and remonstrances against, his mal-administration. That thus the people will be deprived of their most essential right. That it being (as at present) a governor's interest to cultivate the good-will, by promoting the welfare of the people he governs, can be attended with no prejudice to the mother-country, since all the laws he may be prevailed on to give his assent to are subject to revision here, and if reported against by the board of trade, are immediately repealed by the crown; nor dare he pass any law contrary to his instructions; as he holds his office during the pleasure of the crown, and his securities are liable for the penalties of their bonds, if he contravenes those instructions. This is what they say as to governors.
As to judges, they alledge, that being appointed from hence, and holding their commissions not during good behaviour, as in Britain, but during pleasure: all the weight of interest or influence would be thrown into one of the scales (which ought to be held even) if the salaries are also to be paid out of duties raised upon the people without their consent, and independent of their assemblies approbation or disapprobation of the judges behaviour. That it is true, judges should be free from all influence; and therefore, whenever government here will grant commissions to able and honest judges during good behaviour, the assemblies will settle permanent and ample salaries on them during their commissions; but at present, they have no other means of getting rid of an ignorant or an unjust judge (and some of scandalous characters have, they say, been sometimes sent them) left, but by starving them out.
I do not suppose these reasonings of theirs will appear here to have much weight. I do not produce them with an expectation of convincing your readers. I relate them merely in pursuance of the task I have imposed on myself, to be an impartial historian of American facts and opinions. — —
The colonists being thus greatly alarmed, as I said before, by the news of the act for abolishing the legislature of New York, and the imposition of these new duties, professedly for such disagreeable purposes (accompanied by a new set of revenue officers, with large appointments, which gave strong suspicions, that more business of the same kind was soon to be provided for them, that they might earn their salaries) began seriously to consider their situation; and to revolve afresh in their minds, grievances, which, from their respect and love for this country, they had long borne and seemed almost willing to forget. They reflected how lightly the interest of all America had been estimated here, when the interests of a few of the inhabitants of Great Britain happened to have the smallest competition with it. That the whole American people was forbidden the advantage of a direct importation of wine, oil, and fruit, from Portugal; but must take them loaded with all the expence of a voyage one thousand leagues round about, being to be landed first in England, to be re-shipped for America; expences amounting, in war-time, at least to thirty pounds per cent more than otherwise they would have been charged with; and all this merely, that a few Portugal merchants in London may gain a commission on those goods passing through their hands. (Portugal merchants, by the bye, that can complain loudly of the smallest hardships laid on their trade by foreigners, and yet even in the last year could oppose with all their influence the giving ease to their fellow-subjects labouring under so heavy an oppression!) That on a slight complaint of a few Virginia merchants, nine colonies had been restrained from making paper-money, become absolutely necessary to their internal commerce, from the constant remittance of their gold and silver to Britain.—But not only the interest of a particular body of merchants, but the interest of any small body of British tradesmen or artificers has been found, they say, to outweigh that of all the king's subjects in the colonies. There cannot be a stronger natural right than that of a man's making the best profit he can of the natural produce of his lands, provided he does not thereby hurt the state in general. Iron is to be found every where in America, and beaver are the natural produce of that country: hats, and nails and steel are wanted there as well as here. It is of no importance to the common welfare of the empire, whether a subject of the king gets his living by making hats on this, or on that side of the water. Yet the hatters of England have prevailed to obtain an act in their own favour, restraining that manufacture in America; in order to oblige the Americans to send their beaver to England to be manufactured, and purchase back the hats, loaded with the charges of a double transportation. In the same manner have a few nail-makers, and still a smaller body of steel-makers (perhaps there are not half a dozen of these in England) prevailed totally to forbid by an act of parliament the erecting of slitting-mills, or steel furnaces in America; that the Americans may be obliged to take all their nails for their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these artificers, under the same disadvantages.[78]
Added to these, the Americans remembered the act authorizing the most cruel insult that perhaps was ever offered by one people to another, that of emptying our gaols into their settlements; Scotland too having within these two years obtained the privilege it had not before, of sending its rogues and villains also to the plantations—I say, reflecting on these things, they said one to another (their newspapers are full of such discourses) "These people are not content with making a monopoly of us (forbidding us to trade with any other country of Europe, and compelling us to buy every thing of them, though in many articles we could furnish ourselves ten, twenty, and even to fifty per cent cheaper elsewhere;) but now they have as good as declared they have a right to tax us ad libitum, internally and externally; and that our constitutions and liberties shall all be taken away, if we do not submit to that claim.
"They are not content with the high prices at which they sell us their goods, but have now begun to enhance those prices by new duties, and by the expensive apparatus of a new set of officers, appear to intend an augmentation and multiplication of those burthens, that shall still be more grievous to us. Our people have been foolishly fond of their superfluous modes and manufactures, to the impoverishing our own country, carrying off all our cash, and loading us with debt; they will not suffer us to restrain the luxury of our inhabitants, as they do that of their own, by laws: they can make laws to discourage or prohibit the importation of French superfluities: but though those of England are as ruinous to us as the French ones are to them, if we make a law of that kind, they immediately repeal it. Thus they get all our money from us by trade; and every profit we can any where make by our fisheries, our produce, or our commerce, centres finally with them;—but this does not satisfy.—It is time then to take care of ourselves by the best means in our power. Let us unite in solemn resolution and engagements with and to each other, that we will give these new officers as little trouble as possible, by not consuming the British manufactures on which they are to levy the duties. Let us agree to consume no more of their expensive gewgaws. Let us live frugally, and let us industriously manufacture what we can for ourselves: thus we shall be able honourably to discharge the debts we already owe them; and after that, we may be able to keep some money in our country, not only for the uses of our internal commerce, but for the service of our gracious sovereign, whenever he shall have occasion for it, and think proper to require it of us in the old constitutional manner.—For notwithstanding the reproaches thrown out against us in their public papers and pamphlets, notwithstanding we have been reviled in their senate as rebels and traitors, we are truly a loyal people. Scotland has had its rebellions, and England its plots against the present royal family; but America is untainted with those crimes; there is in it scarce a man, there is not a single native of our country, who is not firmly attached to his King by principle and by affection. But a new kind of loyalty seems to be required of us, a loyalty to parliament; a loyalty, that is to extend, it is said, to a surrender of all our properties, whenever a house of commons, in which there is not a single member of our chusing, shall think fit to grant them away without our consent, and to a patient suffering the loss of our privileges as Englishmen, if we cannot submit to make such surrender. We were separated too far from Britain by the ocean, but we were united to it by respect and love; so that we could at any time freely have spent our lives and little fortunes in its cause: but this unhappy new system of politics tends to dissolve those bands of union, and to sever us for ever."
These are the wild ravings of the, at present, half-distracted Americans. To be sure, no reasonable man in England can approve of such sentiments, and, as I said before, I do not pretend to support or justify them: but I sincerely wish, for the sake of the manufactures and commerce of Great Britain, and for the sake of the strength, which a firm union with our growing colonies would give us, that these people had never been thus needlessly driven out of their senses.
I am, yours, &c.
F. S.[79]
[75] This letter first appeared in a London paper, January 7, 1768, and was afterwards reprinted as a postscript to The true Sentiments of America, printed for Almon, 1768. B. V.
[76] Mr. George Grenville. B. V.
[77] Mr. Charles Townsend. B. V.
[78] I shall here give the reader the note at the end of the fourth paragraph of the farmer's seventh letter (written by Mr. Dickenson.)
"Many remarkable instances might be produced of the extraordinary inattention with which bills of great importance concerning these colonies have passed in parliament; which is owing, as it is supposed, to the bills being brought in, by the persons who have points to carry, so artfully framed, that it is not easy for the members in general in the haste of business, to discover their tendency.
"The following instances show the truth of this remark.
"When Mr. Grenville, in the violence of reformation and innovation, formed the 4th George III. chap. 15th, for regulating the American trade, the word 'Ireland' was dropt in the clause relating to our iron and lumber, so that we could send these articles to no other part of Europe, but to Great Britain. This was so unreasonable a restriction, and so contrary to the sentiments of the legislature, for many years before, that it is surprising it should not have been taken notice of in the house. However, the bill passed into a law. But when the matter was explained, this restriction was taken off in a subsequent act.
"I cannot say, how long after the taking off this restriction, as I have not the acts, but I think in less than eighteen months, another act of parliament passed, in which the word 'Ireland' was left out as it had been before. The matter being a second time explained was a second time regulated.
"Now if it be considered, that the omission mentioned, struck off, with one word, so very great a part of our trade, it must appear remarkable: and equally so is the method by which rice became an enumerated commodity, and therefore could be carried to Great Britain only.
"The enumeration was obtained, (says Mr. Gee on Trade, p. 32) by one Cole, a captain of a ship, employed by a company then trading to Carolina; for several ships going from England thither, and purchasing rice for Portugal, prevented the aforesaid captain of a loading. Upon his coming home he possessed one Mr. Lowndes, a member of parliament, (who was frequently employed to prepare bills) with an opinion, that carrying rice directly to Portugal was a prejudice to the trade of England, and privately got a clause into an act to make it an enumerated commodity, by which means he secured a freight to himself. But the consequence proved a vast loss to the nation.
"I find that this clause, 'privately got into an act, for the benefit of Captain Cole, to the vast loss of the nation,' is foisted into the 3d Anne, chapter 5th, intitled, 'an act for granting to her majesty a further subsidy on wines and merchandizes imported,' with which it has no more connection, than with 34th Edward I. 34th and 35th of Henry VIII. or the 25th Charles II. which provide that no person shall be taxed but by himself or his representatives." B. V.
[79] F. S. possibly means Franklin's Seal. The paper, however, is undoubtedly the production of Dr. Franklin.
In the collection of tracts on the subjects of taxing the British colonies in America, and regulating their trade (printed in 1773, in 4 vols. 8vo. by Almon) I find two papers, said there to have been published originally in 1739, and to have been drawn up by a club of American merchants, at the head of whom were Sir William Keith (governor of Pensylvania), Joshua Gee, and many other eminent persons. The first paper proposes the raising a small body of regular troops under the command of an officer appointed by the crown and independent of the governors (who were nevertheless to assist him in council on emergent occasions) in order to protect the Indian trade, and take care of the boundaries and back settlements. They were to be supported by a revenue to be established by act of parliament, in America; which revenue was to arise out of a duty on stampt paper and parchment. The second paper goes into the particulars of this proposed stamp duty, offers reasons for extending it over all the British plantations, and recites its supposed advantages. If these papers are at all genuine (a fact about which I am not in the least informed) Mr. George Grenville does not appear to have been original in conceiving stamps as a proper subject for his new tax. See ib. vol. I. B. V.