56 INTRODUCTION. 
should be passed, obliging the inhabitants of the province to take the oaths pre- 
scribed by parliament, for the security of the government and of the protestant 
religion. ‘The assembly complied, after a spirited debate, in which the measure 
was resisted, because it seemed to impeach the loyalty of the province. The 
collisions between the ministry and the governor on one side, and the assembly 
on the other, continued without abatement. ‘The governor, in 1749, renewed his 
demand for provision for the support of government for five years, and when the 
house refused, threatened the members with punishment, declaring that the crown 
could abridge their rights and privileges at pleasure. 'The assembly resolved 
that the governor’s conduct was arbitrary, legal and a violation of their privi- 
leges. 
In the instructions to governor Osborne, in 1753, the ministry persisted in all 
the obnoxious demands which had been so long and uncompromisingly opposed 
by the assembly. The year 1754 was rendered memorable by the assemblage 
of the congress of deputies of the several American colonies, at Albany, to devise 
a plan of union for common defence against the French and Indians. A project 
for a confederacy of the American colonies was prepared by Franklin. It em- 
braced Massachusetts, New-Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode-Island, New-York, 
New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina and South-Caro- 
lina; and proposed that each colony should retain its constitution, but a general 
government should be established, with a president-general and council, to be 
appointed by the crown, and a grand council to be composed of representatives 
elected by the assemblies of the several states. The apportionment of members 
in that council is worthy of notice, because it shows the relative population and 
streneth of the colonies at that period, varying essentially from the relative impor- 
tance of the several states at the present time. Massachusetts was allowed seven 
representatives, New-Hampshire two, Connecticut five, Rhode-Island two, New- 
York four, New-Jersey three, Pennsylvania six, Maryland four, Virginia seven, 
North-Carolina four, South-Carolina four. The powerful machine thus projected 
for the support of the British throne, was twenty-one years afterwards successfully 
