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18 of this instant & communicated as directed, wee have considered the contents with due affection, & brace with all our hearts your offers of a mutuall & amiable correspondence with you, which we shall labor to keep & preserve inviolable towards you, and without fail shall omitt nothing that may appeare any wayes to your intrest peace & welfare as we also doe with Boston & Connecticutt collony being of the same opinion with you, that it is the onely means to preserve their majestie's interests. [King William and Queen Mary]. [Similar letters sent to Mass., Conn., etc.]—Documentary History of New York, vol. II, p. 19.

Agents of four colonies and several Indian chiefs met in 1684 to consider union. One of the sachems addressed the Massachusetts agent as follows:

We all, namely, our governor, the governor of Virginia and the Massachusetts Coloney, and Maquese, are in one covenant. We do plant here a great tree of peace, whose branches spread so far as the Massachusetts Coloney, Virginia, Maryland, and all that are in friendship with us and do live in peace, unity, and tranquility, under the shade of said tree.-Mass. Archives, XXX, p. 303 cited in Frothingham.

Governor Treat, of Connecticut, wrote to Gov. ernor Bradstreet, July 31, 1689, in part, as fol lows:

I hope we shall be willing in the season of it, to revive the ancient confederation upon just terms and articles, holding forth a right consideration of our state compared with the other colonies.Frothingham, Rise of the U. S. Republic, p. 87, note.

Governor Bradsteet wrote, February 3, 1689-90, in the same spirit:

All true Englishmen [ought] to lay aside their private animosities and intestine discords, and to unite against the common enemy.—Ib., 88.

Circular to the Governors of the several prov inces:

NEW YORK, Aprill 2d, 1690:

HONBLE SIR:-[After stating danger from French and Indians, Governor Leister says, we] have likewise communi

cated the same to the Governor of Boston, & the elemen of Connecticutt are likewise advertised thereof, in so much that wee propose for a generall assistance that such persons as to you shall seem meet may be commissioned to treat with them of New England, Virginia, pensilvania and Jerseys, that we may conclude what may conduce most to the King's intrest, wellfare of the provinces. umentary History of New York, vol. II, p. 117.

.-Doo

A. D. 1690 ye 30 Apprill: in N. Yorke.

GENTLEMENS-Last monday arrived heer the Comintioners off [of] Boston Plimouth en Caneticot who have been taking [talking] off several businis concurning the Indian war. [Signed Jacob Leisler.]—Ib., p. 133.

N. YORKE, Primo May 1690.

At a meeting of ye commissioners of ye Province of New York & collonies of ye Massachusetts, Plymouth & Con

necticut,

It is concluded

ye

that each of ye Collonies aforesd shall Provide and furnish ye undermenconed proporcons of Souldiers with Answerable Provisions at their own Charges to Be sent with all Speed:

viz:

By New Yorke four hundred....

.....

400

By Massachusetts Colony one hundred & sixty... 160 By Connecticut Colony one hundred & thirty five. 135 By Plymouth Colony sixty.......

By Maryland by Promise one hundred..

In all eight hundred fifety five............

60

100

855

Further agreed [various things mentioned] That ye Of ficers Be required to maintain good order Amongst ye Soldiers to discountenance & Punish Vice & as much as may be to Keep ye Sabbath and Maintain ye Worship of God.

JACOB LEISLER.

WILLIAM STOUGHTON.
SAML SEWELL.
P. D. LANCY.

JOHN WALLEY.

NATHAN GOLD.

WILLIAM PETKIN,

-Massachusetts Archives, XXXVI, 47.

Leisler in a letter to the governments of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island, attempting to secure additional aid, said:

I hope you will not be wanting so blessed a work at this time to please God and our gracious king. Losing the opportunity and neglecting the season may cause the next gen. eration to curse us.-Frothingham, p. 93.

Though the French colony contains, perhaps, not 30000 men capable to bear arms; yet these are all under the despotic command and sole direction of their Governor-General, The strength of our colonies, on the other hand, is divided, and the concurrence of all necessary both for supplies of men and money. Jealous they are of each other; some ill constituted; others shaken with intestine divisions, and if I may be allowed the expression, parsimonious even to prodigality. Our assemblies are diffident of their Governors; Governors despise their assemblies, and both mutually misrepresent each other to the court of Great Britain. Military measures demand secrecy and dispatch; but while the colonies remain divided, and nothing can be transacted but with their universal assent, it is impossible to maintain the one or proceed with the other. Without a gen

eral constitution for warlike operations, we can neither plan nor execute. We have a common interest, and must have a common council; one head and one purse. [An extract from a letter supposed to have been written by Gov. Livingston of New York, and his friends Messrs. W. Smith and Scott, 1756.]-Massachusetts Hist. Society Col., series I, vol. VII, pp. 161-62.

Mr. Nelson's memorial about the state of the northern colonies in America:

24 Sept: 1696.

Fifthly I am now to make another remark upon the prin cipall, and greatest defect and mistake, in which we have been, and are yet under, I meane the number and independ ency of so many small Governments, whereby our strength is not only divided and weakened, but by reason of their severall interests, are become and doe in a manner esteeme each as foreigners the one unto the other, soe that whatever mischiefs doth happen in one part, the rest by the reason of this disunion remaine unconcerned and our strength thereby weakened; whereas were the Colonies of New England,

Hampshire, Road Island, Conecticot, New York joined in one, we then should be near to [ten?] or 15 for one of those of the French in Canada, and might reasonably propose . to make an entire conquest of that place. -New York Colonial Records, vol. IV, p. 209.

MR. PENN'S PLAN OF UNION.

[1698].

A Briefe and Plaine Scheam how the English Colonies in the North parts of America, viz: Boston, Connecticut, Road Island New York New Jerseys, Pensilvania, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina may be made more usefull to the Crowne, and to one anothers peace and safty with an universall con

currence.

1st. That the Severall colonies before mentioned do meet once a year, and oftener if need be, during the war, and at least once in two years in times of peace, by their stated and appointed deputies, to debate and resolve measures for public good.]

[on

2. That in order to it two persons well qualified for sence sobriety and substance be appointed by each Province, as their Representatives [in Congress].

3. That the Kings Commissioner for that purpose specially appointed shall have the Chaire and preside in the said Congresse.

4. [Central meeting place.]

5. [Suggests governor of New York as King's Commismissioner.]

3dly to prevent

6. That their business shall be to hear and adjust all matters of Complaint or difference between Province and Province. As 1st where persons quit their own Province and goe to another, that they may avoid their just debts 2d where offenders fly justice, or cure injuries in point of commerce, 4th, to consider of ways and means to support the union and safety of these Provinces against the publick enemies In which Congresse the Quotas of men and charges will be much easier, and more equally sett, than it is possible for any establishment made here to do; for the Provinces, knowing their own condition and one anothers, can debate that matter with more freedome, and satisfaction and better adjust and ballance their affairs in all respects for their common safty.

7ly That in times of war the Kings High Commissionr shall be generall or Chief Commander -New York

Colonial Documents, vol. IV, p. 296.

From the scheme of Gov. Livingston, recom mended to the Lords of Trade, May 13, 1701:

To settle the American Governments to the greatest possible advantage, it will be necessary to reduce the number of them; in some places to unite and consolidate; in others to separate and transfer; and in general to divide by natural boundaries instead of imaginary lines. If there should be but one form of government established for the NorthAmerican provinces, it would greatly facilitate the reformation of them. A nobility appointed by the king for life and made independent, would probably give strength and stability to American governments as effectually as hereditary nobility does to that of Great Britain. Cited in Frothingham, p. 117.

Shirley says in a letter dated Oct. 21, 1754, to Governor Morris, newly appointed governor of Pennsylvania:

The best advice I can give you is to lose no time for promoting the plan of a union of the colonies for their mutual defence, to be concerted at home, and established by act of Parliament as soon as possible I am laboring this point totis viribis.—Ibid, p. 146.

Daniel Coxe, 1722, proposed that all the British colonies be

united under a legal, regular, and firm establishment, over which a lieutenant or supreme governor should be constituted and appointed to preside on the spot, to whom the gov ernors of each colony should be subordinate; . . . that two deputies should be annually elected by the council and assembly of each province, who are to be in the nature of a great council or general convention of the states of the colonies [to fix on quotas of men and money which] should be levied and raised by its own assembly in such manner as they should judge most easy and convenient.―Cited by Frothingham, p. 113.

About 1725, when a proposal had been made by the Massachusetts assembly for a convention of all the colonies, it was pronounced by the Board of Trade as "a mutinous proposal."Hutchinson's History of Mass., vol. III, p. 119.