ion to
ministers. Eighty thousand pounds were set apart for the
purpose. Forty members of the House of Commons received from
me a thousand pounds each. To eighty others I paid five
hundred pounds a-piece."

The unrelenting king was still determined that the Americans,
unrepresented in Parliament, should still pay into his treasury
whatever sums of money he might exact. Calling to his aid courtiers
more shrewd than himself, they devised a very cunning act, to attain
that object in a way which would hardly be likely to excite
opposition. They laid a tax, insignificant really in its amount, upon
paper, paint, glass, and tea. This tax was to be collected at the
custom-houses in the few ports of entry in the colonies. The whole
amount thus raised would not exceed forty thousand pounds. It was
thought that the Americans would never make opposition to so trivial a
payment.

But it established a principle that England could tax the colonies
without allowing those colonies any representation in Parliament. If
the Court had a right thus to demand forty thousand pounds, they had
a right to demand so many millions, should it seem expedient to king
and cabinet so to do.

The great blunder which the court committed, was in not appreciating
the wide-spread intelligence of the American people. In New England
particularly, and throughout the colonies generally, there was
scarcely a farmer who did not perceive the trick, and despise it. They
deemed it an insult to their intelligence.

Instantly there arose, throughout all the provinces, the most
determined opposition to the measure. It was in fact merely a renewal
of the Stamp Act, under slightly modified forms. If they admitted the
justice of this act, it was only declaring that they had acted with
unpardonable folly, in opposing the tax under the previous form.

Dr. Franklin, with honest shrewdness, not with trickery or with
cunning, but with a sincere and penetrating mind, eagerly scrutinized
all the measures of the Court. George III. was a gentleman. He was
irreproachable in all his domestic relations. He was, in a sense,
conscientious; for certainly he was not disposed to do anything which
he thought to be wrong. Conscientious men have burned their
fellow-Christians at the stake. It is said that George the Third was a
Christian. He certainly was a full believer in the religion of Jesus
Christ; and earnestly advocated the support and extension of that
reli