Benjamin Franklin: “Rules by Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced to a Small One”

Glossary

• common right natural rights, or good behavior according to common sense
• customs taxes on imports
• despise therefore their voluntary grants look down on the things they give you freely
• ecclesiastical constitution religious practices
• gamesters or stockjobbers gamblers or corrupt stockbrokers
• garrisoning placing troops in a permanent or semipermanent location
• Habeas Corpus Latin for “you shall have the body”; the right of the accused to be formally charged of a crime, rather than be imprisoned without trial
• if a penn’orth of pins is found unentered if a penny’s worth of pins (or any other insignificant item) has not been accounted for
• Mahometans Muslims
• nothing can have a better effect in producing the alienation proposed nothing can do more to turn them against you
• Papists Catholics
• a penny taken from them … a pound presented by their benevolence it is better to force them to give up a small amount than to receive a larger amount freely given
• pimping tide-waiters dishonest sailors who simply wait for the easiest opportunities to go out to sea
• the Royal Person the king or queen
• savages a reference to Native Americans
• shewn shown
• vie in liberal aids compete to give as much as possible