_A._ The goods they take from Britain are either necessaries, mere conveniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, &c., with a little industry they can make at home; the second they can do without till they are able to provide them among themselves; and the last, which are much the greatest part, they will strike off immediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed because the fashion in a respected country; but will now be detested and rejected. The people have already struck-off, by general agreement, the use of all goods fashionable in mournings, and many thousand pounds worth are sent back as unsaleable. _Q._ Is it their interest to make cloth at home? _A._ I think they may at present get it cheaper from Britain, I mean of the same fineness and neatness of workmanship; but when one considers other circumstances, the restraints on their trade, and the difficulty of making remittances, it is their interest to make everything. _Q._ Suppose an act of internal regulations connected with a tax, how would they receive it? _A._ I think it would be objected to. _Q._ Then no regulation with a tax would be submitted to? _A._ Their opinion is, that when aids to the crown are wanted, they are to be asked of the several assemblies, according to the old established usage; who will, as they always have done, grant them freely. And that their money ought not to be given away without their consent, by persons at a distance, unacquainted with their circumstances and abilities. The granting aids to the crown is the only means they have of recommending themselves to their sovereign; and they think it extremely hard and unjust that a body of men, in which they have no representatives, should make a merit to itself of giving and granting what is not their own, but theirs; and deprive them of a right they esteem of the utmost importance, as it is the security of all their other rights. _Q._ But is not the postoffice, which they have long received, a tax as well as a regulation? _A._ No; the money paid for the postage of a letter is not of the nature of a tax; it is merely a _quantum meruit_ for a service done: no person is compellable to pay the money if he does not choose to receive the service. A man may still, as before the act, send his letter by a servant, a special messenger, or a friend, if he thinks it cheaper and safer. _Q._ But do they not consider the regulations of the postoffice, by the act of last year, as a tax? _A._ By the regulations of last year, the rate of postage was generally abated near thirty per cent. through all America; they certainly cannot consider such abatement _as a tax_. _Q._ If an excise was laid by Parliament, which they might likewise avoid paying by not consuming the articles excised, would they then not object to it?