Q. Would the people at Boston discontinue their trade? A. The merchants are a very small number compared with the body of the people, and must discontinue their trade, if nobody will buy their goods. Q. What are the body of the people in the colonies? A. They are farmers, husbandmen or planters. Q. Would they suffer the produce of their lands to rot? A. No; but they would not raise so much. They would manufacture more, and plough less. Q. Would they live without the administration of justice in civil matters, and suffer all the inconveniencies of such a situation for any considerable time, rather than take the stamps, supposing the stamps were protected by a sufficient force, where everyone might have them? A. I think the supposition impracticable, that the stamps should be so protected as that everyone might have them. The Act requires sub-distributors to be appointed in every county town, district, and village, and they would be necessary. But the principal distributors, who were to have had a considerable profit on the whole, have not thought it worth while to continue in the office, and I think it impossible to find sub-distributors fit to be trusted, who, for the trifling profit that must come to their share, would incur the odium, and run the hazard that would attend it; and if they could be found, I think it impracticable to protect the stamps in so many distant and remote places. Q. But in places where they could be protected, would not the people use them rather than remain in such a situation, unable to obtain any right, or recover, by law, any debt? A. It is hard to say what they would do. I can only judge what other people will think, and how they will act, by what I feel within myself. I have a great many debts due to me in America, and I had rather they should remain unrecoverable by any law than submit to the Stamp Act. They will be debts of honour. It is my opinion the people will either continue in that situation, or find some way to extricate themselves, perhaps by generally agreeing to proceed in the courts without stamps. Q. What do you think a sufficient military force to protect the distribution of the stamps in every part of America? A. A very great force; I cannot say what, if the disposition of America is for a general resistance. Q. What is the number of men in America able to bear arms, or of disciplined militia? A. There are, I suppose, at least—[Question objected to. He withdrew. Called in again.] Q. Is the American Stamp Act an equal tax on that country? A. I think not. Q. Why so? A. The greatest part of the money must arise from lawsuits for the recovery of debts, and be paid by the lower sort of people, who were too poor easily to pay their debts. It is therefore a heavy tax on the poor, and a tax upon them for being poor.