_Q._ But in case a governor, acting by instruction, should call on an assembly to raise the necessary supplies, and the assembly should refuse to do it, do you not think it would then be for the good of the people of the colony, as well as necessary to government, that the parliament should tax them?
_A._ I do not think it would be necessary. If an assembly could possibly be so absurd, as to refuse raising the supplies requisite for the maintenance of government among them, they could not long remain in such a situation; the disorders and confusion occasioned by it must soon bring them to reason.
_Q._ If it should not, ought not the right to be in Great Britain of applying a remedy?
_A._ A right, only to be used in such a case, I should have no objection to; supposing it to be used merely for the good of the people of the colony.
_Q._ But who is to judge of that, Britain or the colony?
_Q._ You say the colonies have always submitted to external taxes, and object to the right of parliament only in laying internal taxes; now can you show, that there is any kind of _difference between the two taxes_ to the colony on which they may be laid?
_A._ I think the difference is very great. An _external_ tax is a duty laid on commodities imported; that duty is added to the first cost and other charges on the commodity, and, when it is offered to sale, makes a part of the price. If the people do not like it at that price, they refuse it; they are not obliged to pay it. But an _internal_ tax is forced from the people without their consent, if not laid by their own representatives. The stamp act says, we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills, unless we pay such and such sums; and thus it is intended to extort our money from us, or ruin us by the consequences of refusing to pay it.
_Q._ But supposing the external tax or duty to be laid on the necessaries of life imported into your colony, will not that be the same thing in its effects as an internal tax?
_A._ I do not know a single article imported into the _northern_ colonies, but what they can either do without, or make themselves.