=The Repeal of the Stamp Act and the Sugar Act.=--The effect of American
resistance on opinion in England was telling. Commerce with the colonies
had been effectively boycotted by the Americans; ships lay idly swinging
at the wharves; bankruptcy threatened hundreds of merchants in London,
Bristol, and Liverpool. Workingmen in the manufacturing towns of England
were thrown out of employment. The government had sown folly and was
reaping, in place of the coveted revenue, rebellion.

Perplexed by the storm they had raised, the ministers summoned to the
bar of the House of Commons, Benjamin Franklin, the agent for
Pennsylvania, who was in London. "Do you think it right," asked
Grenville, "that America should be protected by this country and pay no
part of the expenses?" The answer was brief: "That is not the case; the
colonies raised, clothed, and paid during the last war twenty-five
thousand men and spent many millions." Then came an inquiry whether the
colonists would accept a modified stamp act. "No, never," replied
Franklin, "never! They will never submit to it!" It was next suggested
that military force might compel obedience to law. Franklin had a ready
answer. "They cannot force a man to take stamps.... They may not find a
rebellion; they may, indeed, make one."

The repeal of the Stamp Act was moved in the House of Commons a few days
later. The sponsor for the repeal spoke of commerce interrupted, debts
due British merchants placed in jeopardy, Manchester industries closed,
workingmen unemployed, oppression instituted, and the loss of the
colonies threatened. Pitt and Edmund Burke, the former near the close
of his career, the latter just beginning his, argued cogently in favor
of retracing the steps taken the year before. Grenville refused.
"America must learn," he wailed, "that prayers are not to be brought to