The "Seven Years' War" had been terminated by the Treaty of Paris, February 10, 1763. Of course, great expenses had been incurred. The following year, Mr. Grenville, Prime Minister of England, proposed that a portion of the enormous debt be paid by America through the Stamp Act. The colonies had submitted already to much taxation without any representation in Parliament, and had many grievances. The manufacture of iron and steel had been forbidden. Heavy duties had been laid upon rum, sugar, and molasses, and constables had been authorized to search any place suspected of avoiding the duties. When the Stamp Act was suggested, the colonies, already heavily in debt by the war, remonstrated in public meetings, and sent their protests to the king. Franklin, having been reappointed agent for Pennsylvania, used all possible effort to prevent its passage, but to no avail. The bill passed in March, 1765. By this act, deeds and conveyances were taxed from thirty-seven cents to one dollar and twenty-five cents apiece; college degrees, ten dollars; advertisements, fifty cents each, and other printed matter in proportion. At once, the American heart rebelled. Bells were tolled, and flags hung at half-mast. In New York, the Stamp Act was carried about the streets, with a placard, "The folly of England and the ruin of America." The people resolved to wear no cloth of English manufacture. Agents appointed to collect the hated tax were in peril of their lives. Patrick Henry electrified his country by the well known words, "Cæsar had his Brutus, Charles I. had his Cromwell, and George III."--and when the loyalists shouted, "Treason!" he continued, "may profit by their example. If that be treason, make the most of it." Grenville saw, too late, the storm he had aroused. Franklin was now, as he wrote to a friend, "extremely busy, attending members of both houses, informing, explaining, consulting, disputing, in a continual hurry from morning till night." His examination before the House of Commons filled England with amazement and America with joy. When asked, "If the Stamp Act should be repealed, would it induce the Assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of Parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions?" he replied, "No, never!" "What used to be the pride of the Americans?" "To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain." "What is now their pride?" "To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones," said the fearless Franklin. The great commoners William Pitt and Edmund Burke were our stanch friends. A cry of distress went up from the manufacturers of England, who needed American markets for their goods, and in 1766 the Stamp Act was repealed.