1754.

tenable. The little intrenchment was in a glade between two eminences covered with trees, except within sixty yards of it. On the third of July, about noon, six hundred French, with one hundred Indians, came in sight, and took possession of one of the eminences, where every soldier found a large tree for his shelter, and could fire in security on the troops beneath. For nine hours, in a heavy rain, the fire was returned. The tranquil courage of Washington spread its influence through the raw provincial levies, so inferior to the French in numbers and in position. At last, after thirty of the English and but three of the French had been killed, De Villiers himself, fearing his ammunition would give out, proposed a parley. The terms of capitulation which were offered were interpreted to Washington, who did not understand French; and, as interpreted, were accepted. On the fourth, the English garrison, retaining all its effects, but leaving hostages, withdrew from the basin of the Ohio. In the valley of the Mississippi, no standard floated but that of France.

Hope might dawn from Albany. There, on the nineteenth day of June, 1754, assembled the memorable congress of commissioners from every colony north of the Potomac. The Virginia government, too, was represented by the presiding officer, Delancey, the lieutenant-governor of New York. They met to concert measures of defence, and to treat with the Six Nations and the tribes in their alliance. America had never seen an assembly so venerable for the states that were represented, or for the great and able men who composed it. Every voice declared a union of all the colonies to be absolutely necessary. And, as a province might recede at will from an unratified covenant, the experienced Hutchinson, of Massachusetts, proud of having rescued that colony from thraldom to paper money; Hopkins, a patriot of Rhode Island; the wise and faithful Pitkin, of Connecticut; Tasker, of Maryland; the liberal Smith, of New York; and Franklin, the most benignant of statesmen, were deputed to prepare a constitution for a perpetual confederacy of the continent; but Franklin had already "projected" a plan, and had brought the heads of it with him.

The representatives of the Six Nations assembled tardily, but urged union and action. They accepted the tokens of peace; they agreed to look upon "Virginia and Carolina" as also present. "We thank you," said Hendrick, the great Mohawk chief, "for renewing and brightening the covenant chain. We will take this belt to Onondaga, where our council-fire always burns, and keep it so securely that neither the thunderbolt nor the lightning shall break it. Strengthen yourselves, and bring as many as you can into this covenant chain." "You desired us to open our minds and hearts to you,” added the indignant brave. "Look at the French; they are men; they are fortifying everywhere. But, we are ashamed to say it, you are like women, without any fortifications. It is but one step from Canada hither; and the French may easily come and turn you out of doors."

The distrust of the Six Nations was still stronger than was expressed. Though presents in unusual abundance had been provided, and a general invitation had been given, but one hundred and fifty warriors appeared. Half of the Onondagas had withdrawn, and joined the settlement formed at Oswegatchie under French auspices. Even Mohawks went to the delegates from Massachusetts to complain that the ground on which they slept, and where burned the fires by which they sat, had never been sold, but had yet been surveyed and stolen from them in the night. The lands on the Ohio they called their own; and, as Connecticut was claiming a part of Pennsylvania, because by its charter its jurisdiction extended west to the Pacific, they advised the respective claimants to remain at peace.

The red men having held their last council, and the congress, by its president, having spoken to them farewell, the discussion of the federative compact was renewed; and, the project of Franklin being accepted, he was deputed alone to make a draught of it. On the tenth day of 1754. July, he produced the finished plan of perpetual union, which was read paragraph by paragraph, and debated all day long.

The seat of the proposed federal government was to be Philadelphia, a central city, which it was thought could be

reached even from New Hampshire or South Carolina in fifteen or twenty days. The constitution was a compromise between the prerogative and popular power. The king was to name and to support a governor-general, who should have a negative on all laws; the people of the colonies, through their legislatures, were to elect triennially a grand council, which alone could originate bills. Each colony was to send a number of members in proportion to its contributions, yet not less than two, nor more than seven. The governor-general was to nominate military officers, subject to the advice of the council, which, in turn, was to nominate all civil officers. No money was to be issued but by their joint order. Each colony was to retain its domestic constitution; the federal government was to regulate all relations of peace or war with the Indians, affairs of trade, and purchases of lands not within the bounds of particular colonies; to establish, organize, and temporarily to govern new settlements; to raise soldiers, and equip vessels of force on the seas, rivers, or lakes; to make laws, and levy just and equal taxes. The grand council were to meet once a year; to choose their own speaker; and neither to be dissolved nor prorogued, nor continue sitting longer than six weeks at any one time, but by their own consent.

The most sedulous friend of union, and "the principal hand in forming the plan," was Benjamin Franklin. Almost every article was contested by one or another. His warmest supporters were the delegates from New England; yet Connecticut feared the negative power of the governorgeneral. On the royalist side, none opposed but Delancey. He would have reserved to the colonial governors a negative on all elections to the grand council; but it was answered that the colonies would then be virtually taxed by a congress of governors. The sources of revenue suggested in debate were a duty on spirits and a general stamptax. At length, after much debate, in which Franklin manifested consummate address, the commissioners agreed on the proposed confederacy "pretty unanimously." "It is not altogether to my mind," said Franklin, giving an account of the result, "but it is as I could get it;" and

copies were ordered, that every member might "lay the plan of union before his constituents for consideration ; a copy was also to be transmitted to the governor of each colony not represented in the congress.

New England colonies in their infancy had given birth to a confederacy. William Penn, in 1697, had proposed an annual congress of all the provinces on the continent of America, with power to regulate commerce. Franklin revived the great idea, and breathed into it enduring life. As he descended the Hudson, the people of 1754. New York thronged about him to welcome him; and he, who had first entered their city as a runaway apprentice, was revered as the mover of American union.

Yet the system was not altogether acceptable either to Great Britain or to America. The fervid attachment of each colony to its own individual liberties repelled the overruling influence of a central power. Connecticut rejected it; even New York showed it little favor; the representatives of Pennsylvania took it up when Franklin happened to be absent, and reprobated it without showing any attention to it at all; Massachusetts charged her agent to oppose it. The board of trade, on receiving the minutes of the congress, were astonished at a plan of general government "complete in itself." Reflecting men in England dreaded American union as the key-stone of independence.

He

But, in the mind of Franklin, the love for union assumed still more majestic proportions, and comprehended "the great country back of the Appalachian mountains." directed attention to the extreme richness of its land; the healthy temperature of its air; the mildness of the climate; and the vast convenience of inland navigation by the lakes and rivers. "In less than a century," said he, "it must undoubtedly become a populous and powerful dominion." And through Thomas Pownall, who had been present at Albany during the deliberations of the congress, he advised the immediate organization of two new colonies in the west, with powers of self-direction and government like those of Connecticut and Rhode Island: the one on Lake Erie; the

other in the valley of the Ohio, with its capital on the banks of the Scioto.

The freedom of the American colonies, their union, and their extension through the west, became the three objects of the remaining years of Franklin. Heaven, in its mercy, gave the illustrious statesman length of days, so that he witnessed the fulfilment of his great designs.