ry which no tongue can tell, religious bitterness was
aroused, and the French Roman Catholic was arrayed against the British
Protestant.

Three wars, bloody and woful, had already ravaged this continent. We
have before alluded to the menace of a new war in the year 1754, and
to Franklin's mission to Albany to enlist the chiefs of the Six
Nations to become allies of the English. We have also alluded to the
plan, which Franklin drew up on this journey, for the union of the
colonies, and which was rejected. The wisdom of this plan was,
however, subsequently developed by the fact that it was remarkably
like that by which eventually the colonies were bound together as a
nation.

Assuming that the English were right in their claim for the whole
continent, Franklin urged the eminently wise measure of establishing
strong colonies, in villages of a hundred families each, on the
luxuriant banks of the western rivers. But the haughty British
government would receive no instructions from American provincials.

Governor Shirley, of Boston, showed Mr. Franklin a plan, drawn up in
England, for conducting the war. It developed consummate ignorance of
the difficulties of carrying on war in the pathless wilderness; and
also a great disregard of the political rights of the American
citizens. According to this document, the British court was to
originate and execute all the measures for the conduct of the war; and
the British Parliament was to assess whatever tax it deemed expedient
upon the American people to defray the expenses. The Americans were to
have no representation in Parliament, and no voice whatever in
deciding upon the sum which they were to pay.

Franklin examined the document carefully, and returned it with his
written objections. In this remarkable paper, he anticipated the
arguments which our most distinguished statesmen and logicians urged
against the Stamp Act--against Taxation without Representation. A
brief extract from this important paper, will give the reader some
idea of its character:

"The colonists are Englishmen. The accident of living in a
colony deprives them of no right secured by Magna Charta. The
people in the colonies, who are to feel the immediate
mischiefs of invasion and conquest by an enemy, in the loss
of their estates, lives and liberties, are likely to be
better judges of the quantity of forces necessary to be
raised and maintained, and supported, and of th