s to maintain the
safety of that carriage.

Q.--Supposing the Stamp Act continued and was enforced, do you
imagine that ill-humour will induce the Americans to give as much
for worse manufactures of their own, and use them preferably to
better ones of yours?

A.--Yes, I think so. People will pay as freely to gratify one
passion as another--their resentment as their pride.

Q.--What do you think a sufficient military force to protect the
distribution of the stamps in every part of America?

A.--A very great force; I can't say what, if the disposition of
America is for a general resistance.

Q.--If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would not the Americans
think they could oblige the Parliament to repeal every external tax
law now in force?

A.--It is hard to answer questions of what people at such a
distance will think.

Q.--But what do you imagine they will think were the motives of
repealing the Act?

A.--I suppose they will think that it was repealed from a
conviction of its inexpediency; and they will rely upon it that,
while the same expediency subsists, you will never attempt to make
such another.

Q--What do you mean by its inexpediency?

A.--I mean its inexpediency on several accounts: the poverty and
inability of those who were to pay the tax, the general discontent
it has occasioned, and the impracticability of enforcing it.

Q.--If the Act should be repealed, and the Legislature should show
its resentment to the opposers of the Stamp Act, would the colonies
acquiesce in the authority of the Legislature? What is your opinion
they would do?

A.--I don't doubt at all that if the Legislature repeal the Stamp
Act, the colonies will acquiesce in the authority.

Q.--But if the Legislature should think fit to ascertain its right
to levy taxes, by any Act levying a small tax, contrary to their
opinion, would they submit to pay the tax?

A.--The proceedings of the people in America have been considered
too much together. The proceedings of the Assemblies have been very
different from those of the mobs, and should be distinguished, as
having no connection with each other. The Assemblies have only
peaceably resolved what they take to be their rights; they have
taken no measures for opposition by force; t