Before, however, that time came, a series of events having no connection with these transactions had led to a change of ministry in England, and the new cabinet was less inclined to carry matters with a high hand.  Indeed, even the boldest statesman could hardly have learned the state of feeling which had been excited in America without apprehension, and those who had the chief weight in the new administration were not men to imperil the state by an insistance on abstract theories of right and prerogative.  Accordingly, when, after Lord Rockingham had become Prime-minister, Parliament met in December, 1765, the royal speech recommended the state of affairs in America to the consideration of Parliament (a recommendation which manifestly implied a disposition on the part of the King’s advisers to induce the House of Commons to retrace its steps), papers were laid before Parliament, and witnesses from America were examined, and among them a man who had already won a high reputation by his scientific acquirements, but who had not been previously prominent as a politician, Dr. Benjamin Franklin.  He had come over to England as agent for Pennsylvania, and his examination, as preserved in the “Parliamentary History,” may be taken as a complete statement of the matter in dispute from the American point of view, and of the justification which the Colonists conceived themselves to have for refusing to submit to pay such a tax as had now been imposed upon them.  At a later day he was one of the most zealous, as he was probably one of the earliest, advocates of separation from England; but as yet neither his language nor his actions afforded any trace of such a feeling.

He affirmed[36] the general temper of the Colonists toward Great Britain to have been, till this act was passed, the best in the world.  They considered themselves as a part of the British empire, and as having one common interest with it.  They did not consider themselves as foreigners.  They were jealous for the honor and prosperity of this nation, and always were, and always would be, ready to support it as far as their little power went.  They considered the Parliament of Great Britain as the great bulwark and security of their liberties and privileges, and always spoke of it with the utmost respect and veneration.  They had given a practical proof of their goodwill by having raised, clothed, and paid during the last war nearly 25,000 men, and spent many millions; nor had any Assembly of any Colony ever refused duly to support the government by proper allowances from time to time to public officers.  They had always been ready, and were ready now, to tax themselves.  The Colonies had Assemblies of their own, which were their Parliaments.  They were, in that respect, in the same situation as Ireland.  Their Assemblies had a right to levy money on the subject, then to grant to the crown, and, indeed, had constantly done so; and he himself was specially instructed by the Assembly