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.