“The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George the III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War.”

— Benjamin Franklin

Widely quoted statement on the reasons for the American War of Independence sometimes cited as being from Franklin's autobiography, but this statement was never in any edition.
Variants from various small publications from the 1940s:
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the Colonies to operate on an honest Colonial system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
The refusal of King George to allow the colonies to operate on an honest, colonial money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators, was probably the prime cause of the revolution.
Some of the statement might be derived from those made during his examination by the British Parliament in February 1766, published in "The Examination of Benjamin Franklin" in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803‎ (1813); when questioned why Parliament had lost respect among the people of the Colonies, he answered: "To a concurrence of causes: the restraints lately laid on their trade, by which the bringing of foreign gold and silver into the Colonies was prevented; the prohibition of making paper money among themselves, and then demanding a new and heavy tax by stamps; taking away, at the same time, trials by juries, and refusing to receive and hear their humble petitions".
Misattributed
Variant: The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England and the Rothschild's Bank took away from the colonies their money which created unemployment, dissatisfaction and debt.

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Benjamin Franklin 183

American author, printer, political theorist, politician, p… 1706–1790

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“In the Colonies we issue our own money. It is called Colonial Scrip. We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one.”

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) American author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, …

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“When a large part of the market for British textiles was in the colonies, a fall in the price of tea and cocoa caused unemployment in Lancashire.”

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“If we start space colonies in, say, the next 20 years, I would put my money on the asteroids.”

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“The colonists, it seems, had to "pay taxes to which their consent had never been asked."”

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“And the reason the federal government wasn’t given that power [to create paper money or issue bills of credit] was because the framers didn’t want it to have the power to create inflation. They had just experienced it firsthand with the Continental dollar, which ended up being worth around 10 cents and gave rise to the expression “not worth a Continental.””

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“He hoped that Britain and Canada would have "a healthy and cordial alliance. Instead of looking upon us as a merely dependent colony, England will have in us a friendly nation, a subordinate but still a powerful people to stand by her in North America in peace or in war."”

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Dated

“It is indeed a great interest, the conservation of your colonies, but even that interest is connected with your constitution; and the supreme interest of the nation and of the colonies themselves is that you conserve your liberty and do not overturn the foundations of that liberty with your own hands. Faugh! Perish your colonies, if you are keeping them at that price. Yes, if you had either to lose your colonies, or to lose your happiness, your glory, your liberty, I would repeat: perish your colonies.”

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