owing to some internal dissensions in that colony. But whether the fact were so or otherwise, the case is equally to be provided for by a competent sovereign power. But then this ought to be no ordinary power, nor ever used in the first instance. This is what I meant, when I have said, at various times, that I consider the power of taxing in Parliament as an instrument of empire, and not as a means of supply. William Pitt the Elder The views of Knox, Grenville and Burke did not go unchallenged: William Pitt was amongst those who disputed that a Parliamentary right or power existed to levy "internal" taxes "for the purposes of raising a revenue" without the consent of actual representatives of the "Commons of America". "It is my opinion," Pitt said, "that this kingdom has no right to lay a tax upon the colonies." Colonial spokespersons In 1764, the Massachusetts politician James Otis, Jr., said that: Otis, Jr., attended the Stamp Act Congress of 1765 along with other colonial delegates. The resolutions of the Congress stated that the Stamp Act had "a manifest tendency to subvert the rights and liberties of the colonists" and that "the only Representatives of the People of these Colonies, are Persons chosen therein by themselves, and that no Taxes ever have been, or can be Constitutionally imposed on them, but by their respective Legislature." Furthermore, it was declared that, "it is unreasonable and inconsistent with the Principles and Spirit of the British Constitution, for the People of Great-Britain, to grant to his Majesty the Property of the Colonists." Daniel Dulany, Jr., of Maryland, wrote in an influential 1765 pamphlet that, "the Impropriety of a Taxation by the British Parliament ... [is proven by] the Fact, that not one inhabitant in any Colony is, or can be actually or virtually represented by the British House of Commons." Dulany, Jr., denied that Parliament had a right "to impose an internal Tax upon the Colonies, without their consent for the single Purpose of Revenue." In 1766, Benjamin Franklin told the House of Commons that, "an internal tax is forced from the people without their consent if not laid by their own representatives. The Stamp Act says we shall have no commerce, make no exchange of property with each other, neither purchase nor grant, nor recover debts; we shall neither marry nor make our wills,