The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

by H.W. Brands

A more thorough piece appeared in the London Chronicle. “The waves never rise but when the winds blow,” he quoted the proverb and himself, before essaying to smooth the waters by diminishing the gale. The source of the trouble, he said, was a basic misunderstanding; a recounting of the distant and recent past by “an impartial historian of American facts and opinions” would set things straight. Again writing anonymously, he explained that the colonies’ traditional method of contributing to imperial upkeep was by grants, supplied in response to royal requisition. This method “left the King’s subjects in those remote countries the pleasure of showing their zeal and loyalty, and of imagining that they recommended themselves to their Sovereign by the liberality of their voluntary grants.” This practice, and the opinions it entailed, conformed to the Americans’ belief that their rights as Englishmen forbade their taxation by any assembly not of their choosing.