Franklin had a scheme for North American union, comprising a President appointed by the Crown, and a general Council elected by the taxpayers of the colonies, the number of representatives of each colony to be determined by the amount of taxes paid. Plenary powers were to be given to the President and Council, including even power to make war and peace. Had the scheme been carried out, North America would have become one great self-governing colony, {234} in some respects more independent, in others more restricted than the self-governing colonies of Great Britain at the present day. Franklin's proposals, though his fellow commissioners were inclined to approve them, pleased neither the colonies nor the mother country. They were premature. The colonies were too jealous of their local liberties to accept the scheme. The mother country still distrusted the colonies, and dreaded the strength which union would bring. Moreover, the immediate necessity was united action, not constitutional change. The French must first be driven back; and with this object Dinwiddie made an earnest appeal to the ministry in England. [Sidenote: _Troops sent from England and from France._] [Sidenote: _The 'Alcide' and the 'Lys' intercepted by Admiral Boscawen._] The appeal was not made in vain; two regiments of infantry, the 44th and 48th, now the Essex and Northampton regiments, were ordered to embark for Virginia, and sailed from Cork in January, 1755, with Major-General Braddock in command. The French Government, taking alarm, ordered out 3,000 men under Baron Dieskau, a German serving in the French army; and at the beginning of May, 1755, eighteen French ships sailed from Brest carrying to Canada the troops and their commander, and taking out at the same time a new Governor-General, the Marquis de Vaudreuil. Most of the vessels reached their destination in safety; but two, the _Alcide_ and _Lys_, were intercepted by the English Admiral Boscawen, off the coast of Newfoundland, were fired into, and compelled to surrender.[6] There was still supposed to be peace between Great Britain and France, but the backwoods of America and the waters of the Atlantic echoed to the sounds of war. [Footnote 6: The _Alcide_ was overpowered by the _Dunkirk_, commanded by the afterwards famous Admiral Lord Howe.] [Sidenote: _Scheme of the English campaign against Canada._]