ston
from all over the country. The first Continental Congress assembled at
Philadelphia in September. All the colonies but Georgia were
represented. An earnest statement of grievances was drawn up, with a
prayer to the king for redress. The action of Massachusetts was
approved, and an agreement entered into to suspend all commerce with
England.

Things now hastened rapidly toward open war. British troops were
stationed in Boston, and began fortification. Military preparations were
making everywhere among the colonists. The train was laid. Only a spark
was needed to bring the dreaded explosion.

CHAPTER III.

INDEPENDENCE AND THE NEW STATES

[1775]

The thought of independence in the minds of the colonists was of
surprisingly slow growth. The feeling of dependence on the
mother-country and of loyalty to the king was deep-rooted and died hard.
Even union, which was a pre-requisite to a successful struggle for
independence, came slowly. The old New England Confederation, in 1643-
84, between Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Connecticut, and New Haven, for
defence against Indians, Dutch, and French, ended without ever having
manifested the slightest vigor. In the latter half of the seventeenth
century Virginia had alliances with some sister colonies for protection
against Indians; but there was no call for a general congress until the
French and Indian attack on Schenectady, in 1690, during King William's
War. Representatives from New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and
Plymouth met that year at New York; letters came from Virginia,
Maryland, and Rhode Island. But no permanent union was proposed here,
nor at any of the similar meetings, seven at least, which occurred
between 1690 and 1750.

The Albany Convention, which met in 1754 to prepare for the French and
Indian War, adopted a plan for union presented by Franklin, providing
for a president-general appointed and supported by the Crown, and for a
grand council of delegates elected triennially by the colonies according
to population, and empowered, within limits, to lay taxes and make laws
for the common interest of English America. Franklin believed that the
adoption of this scheme would have postponed the Revolution a century.
But, as it gave so much power to the king, it was rejected by the people
in every colony.

Even after English oppression and the diligent agency of committees of
correspondence had brought union, and delegates from the colonies had
m