Q. Do they consider the post office as a tax, or as a regulation? A. Not as a tax, but as a regulation and conveniency; every assembly encouraged it, and supported it in its infancy, by grants of money, which they would not otherwise have done; and the people have always paid the postage. Q. When did you receive the instructions you mentioned? A. I brought them with me, when I came to England, about 15 months since. Q. When did you communicate that instruction to the minister? A. Soon after my arrival, while the stamping of America was under consideration, and before the Bill was brought in. Q. Would it be most for the interest of Great Britain, to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco, or in manufactures? A. In tobacco, to be sure. Q. What used to be the pride of the Americans? A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain. Q. What is now their pride? A. To wear their old clothes over again, till they can make new ones. Withdrew. _Parliamentary History of England, volume 16, pages 138-160._ "Mr. Sparks very justly says that there was no event in Franklin's life more creditable to his talents and character, or which gave him so much celebrity, as this examination before the House of Commons. His further statement, however, that Franklin's answers were given without premeditation and without knowing beforehand the nature or form of the question that was to be put, is a little too sweeping. In a memorandum which Franklin gave to a friend who wished to know by whom the several questions were put, he admitted that many were put by friends to draw out in answer the substance of what he had before said upon the subject." _J. Bigelow, Life of Benjamin Franklin, volume 1, page 507, foot-note._ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1766. The repeal of the Stamp Act and passage of the Declaratory Act. Speech of Pitt.