dministration were not men to
imperil the state by an insistance on abstract theories of right and
prerogative. Accordingly, when, after Lord Rockingham had become
Prime-minister, Parliament met in December, 1765, the royal speech
recommended the state of affairs in America to the consideration of
Parliament (a recommendation which manifestly implied a disposition on
the part of the King's advisers to induce the House of Commons to
retrace its steps), papers were laid before Parliament, and witnesses
from America were examined, and among them a man who had already won a
high reputation by his scientific acquirements, but who had not been
previously prominent as a politician, Dr. Benjamin Franklin. He had come
over to England as agent for Pennsylvania, and his examination, as
preserved in the "Parliamentary History," may be taken as a complete
statement of the matter in dispute from the American point of view, and
of the justification which the Colonists conceived themselves to have
for refusing to submit to pay such a tax as had now been imposed upon
them. At a later day he was one of the most zealous, as he was probably
one of the earliest, advocates of separation from England; but as yet
neither his language nor his actions afforded any trace of such a
feeling.

He affirmed[36] the general temper of the Colonists toward Great Britain
to have been, till this act was passed, the best in the world. They
considered themselves as a part of the British empire, and as having one
common interest with it. They did not consider themselves as foreigners.
They were jealous for the honor and prosperity of this nation, and
always were, and always would be, ready to support it as far as their
little power went. They considered the Parliament of Great Britain as
the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and
always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration. They had
given a practical proof of their goodwill by having raised, clothed, and
paid during the last war nearly 25,000 men, and spent many millions; nor
had any Assembly of any Colony ever refused duly to support the
government by proper allowances from time to time to public officers.
They had always been ready, and were ready now, to tax themselves. The
Colonies had Assemblies of their own, which were their Parliaments. They
were, in that respect, in the same situation as Ireland. Their
Assemblies had a right to levy money on the subject, then t