Bigelow, J: Franklin

Excerpt from Franklin: A Sketch

In 1754 a war with France was impending, and Franklin, who by this time had become the most important man in the colony of Pennsylvania, was sent to a congress of com missioners from the different colonies, ordered by the Lords of Trade to convene at Albany, to_ confer with the chiefs of the Six N ations for their common defence. Franklin there submitted a plan for organizing a system of colonial defence which was adopted and reported; it provided for a president - general of all the colonies to be appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be chosen by the representa tives of the people of the several colonies. The colonies so united, he thought, would be sufficiently strong to defend themselves, and there would then be no need of troops from England. Had this course been pursued, the subsequent pretence for taxing America would not have been furnished, and the bloody contest it occasioned might have been avoided. The Lords of Trade, however, feared that any such union of the colonies would reveal to them their strength; and the project of union, though accompanied with a recommendation from the governor of the province of Pennsylvania, when it was brought into the assembly, as it was during Franklin's casual absence from the hall, was rejected. This Franklin thought a mistake. But such mistakes, he said, are not new history is full of the errors of states and princes. Those who govern, hav ing much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into exe cution new projects. The best public measures are there fore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion. Instead of allowing the colonists to unite and defend themselves, the home Government sent over General Braddock with two regiments of regular English troops, whom the colonists were expected to maintain. The proprietaries, Thomas and Richard Penn.

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