Ship Duty had caused among the English gentry it the years leading up to the Civil War-and this
historical parallel did not escape the notice of the colonists. To make matters worse, for some
reason which made obscure sense to Grenville's dim calculations, the duty fell particularly hard
on two categories of men skilled in circulating grievances-publicans (who had to pay a
registration fee of £1 year) and newspapers (who had to print on stamped paper). Grenville had a
gift for doing the wrong thing. His Sugar Act cost £8,000 is administrative costs for every £2,000
raised in revenue. His Stamp Act cost a lot in administration too but raised nothing. It proved
unenforceable. Colonial assemblies pronounced it unconstitutional and unlawful. The irresistible
popular catchphrase `No taxation without representation' was heard. The stamps were publicly
burned by rioters. One stamp master, Zachariah Hood, had to ride so hard from Massachusetts
for protection in the British garrison in New York that he killed his horse under him. Unless the
redcoats did it, there was no force prepared to curb the riots. Moreover there were plenty of
people in London, led by Pitt, ready to agree with the colonists that parliament had no right to tax
them in this way. So the Stamp Act was repealed. That was rightly seen in America as weakness.
Parliament then compounded its error by insisting on passing a Declaratory Act asserting its
sovereignty over America. That made the dispute not just financial but constitutional.
It is now time to see the origins and progress of the breakdown between Britain and America
through the eyes of a man who was involved in all its stages and did his considerable best to
prevent it-Benjamin Franklin. One of the delights of studying American history in the 18th
century is that this remarkable polymath, visionary, down-to-earth jack-of-all-trades pops up
everywhere. There were few contemporary pies into which he did not insert a self-seeking finger.
We know a lot about him because he wrote one of the best of all autobiographies. He was born in
Boston in 1706, youngest son of a family of seventeen sired by a tallow-chandler immigrant
from Oxfordshire. His parents lived to be eighty-four and eighty-seven, and all this was typical
of the way America's population was exploding with natural growth-in Philadelphia Franklin met
Hannah Miller, who died at l00 in 1769, leaving fourteen children, eighty-two grandchildren and
110 great-grandchildren. Franklin had only two years' schooling, then went to work for his elder
brother James' printing business. He became a lifelong autodidact, teaching himself French,
Latin, Italian, Spanish, maths, science, and many other things. At the age of fifteen he started
writing for James' newspaper, the New England Courant. His mentor was another self-taught
multiple genius, Daniel Defoe, but he learned self-discipline from yet another polymath, Cotton
Mather. James was twice in trouble with the authorities for his critical articles, and jailed;
Benjamin was a rebel too-'Adam was never called Master Adam,' one of his articles went. We never read of Noah Esquire, Lot Knight and Baronet, nor of the Rt Hon. Abraham, Viscount Mesopotamia, Baron of Canaan.' James' paper banned, it reappeared with Benjamin as editor- proprietor, but he soon rebelled against James too and left for Philadelphia. This was now effectively the capital of the colonies and bigger than Boston. Franklin thrived there. In 1724 the governor of Pennsylvania, Sir William Keith, sent him to England for eighteen months and he returned full of ideas and new technology. By the age of twenty-four he was the most successful printer in America's boom-city, owner of the Pennsylvania Gazette, and currency-printer to the Assembly,a very profitable jobb and a great help to me.' He persuaded
other young, selfeducating artisans to form a 'Junto or Club of the Leather Aprons,' which set up
a circulating library-the first in America and widely imitated-which was notable for its paucity of
religious books and its plethora of do-it-yourself volumes of science, literature, technology, and
history." Franklin worked hard at improving his adopted city. He helped set up its first police or