Beschreibung:

FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, Signer. Autograph letter signed (in third person "Dr Franklin") TO DAVID HARTLEY [Passy, near Paris, France?], 26 February [1775]. 1 page, 4to, 230 x 180mm. (9 x 7 1/2 in.), left edge a bit worn, minor spotting, verso with Hartley's docket: "Dr Franklin 26 Feb 1775." FRANKLIN IS POLITELY SARCASTIC IN EXPLAINING THE METHODS FOR TAXATION OF THE AMERICAN COLONIES A letter of considerable interest. Franklin explains "the form and manner" in which levies had been made upon the colony of Pennsylvania by royal agents, and apparently forwards copies of Pennsylvania's votes on those taxes for a three-year period: "Dr Franklin presents his Complimen]ts to Mr Hartley, and sends the Pennsylvania Votes for 3 successive Years, wherein he will find the Form & Manner of Requisitions. They are always contain'd in a Letter from the Secretary of State written by his Majesty's Command, the Business having been first considered & resolved in Council. A Converstaion between a Chancellor of the Exchequer & an Agent, in which the former might talk of taxing the Colonies, was never understood to be a Requisition; If the Colonies had proceeded to raise Money upon Information of such Discourse, without knowing whether the King was privy to it or had ordered it, it might be expected another Year, that they would raise Money on an Intimation from the Chancellor's Secretary to the Agent's Clerk." The issue of taxation was at the very heart of the rift between Great Britain and her American colonies. A 1724 decision established the principle that an English colony could only be taxed by Parliament or a representative body chosen by the colony itself. Parliament had unwisely waited until 1764 to levy taxes on the colonies. "The decision of Parliament to hold its hand until after the colonies had become sufficiently strong to offer successful resistance proved one of the cardinal mistakes of British colonial policy" (John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolution , 1943, p.31). In 1767, Franklin had entered the argument with the publication (under the pseudonym "Benevolus") of his article, "On the Propriety of Taxing America," a well-reasoned, succint rebuttal to most of the contemporary arguments in favor of colonial taxation by Parliament (see Franklin, Papers ,15:110-116 or the digest in Esmond Wright, Franklin of Philadelphia , Boston, 1986, pp.174-175). By 1771, Franklin told another correspondent that "My opinion has long been, that Parliament had originally no right to bind us by any kind of law whatever, without our consent" (quoted in Wright, p.163). Franklin, as agent for Pennsylvania and three other colonial governments, was well-versed in the law, tradition and history of these disputes. The Stamp Act of 1765, an internal tax imposed from outside (without representation) intensified colonial resistence, although it was soon repealed. In 1767, though, Parliament had revived the issue by the Townshend Acts, which imposed export duties on certain commodities. The colonies' response, a well-organized non-importation movement, resulted in the repeal of those duties, except that on tea, in 1770. The reconciliation with the colonists' lasted two years; it began to crumble with the Boston Tea Party (16 December 1773), Parliament's Intolerable Acts (May and June 1774) against Massachusetts and ended decisively in the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which took place only two months after Franklin's present letter to Hartley.