Their growing and expanding life, moreover, developed in them the sense of neighborhood to one another, the consciousness of common interests, and the feeling that they ought in many things to coöperate. In 1754, while the first sharp note of war was ringing from the Alleghanies, a conference with the Six Nations was held at Albany, which, besides dealing with the redmen, and binding them once more to be friends and allies of the English against the French, considered nothing less than a plan of union for the colonies. This was the fourth time that the representatives of several colonies at once had come together at Albany to confer with the Iroquois. The first conference had taken place there in 1689, the year King William’s War began. Albany lay nearest the country of the Iroquois. It was necessary when war was afoot to make sure that the redskins should side with the English, and not with the French; and that was now for the fourth time, in 1754, more critically important than ever. The home government had directed that the conference be held, before they knew what Washington had done. It was the ministers in London, too, who had directed that a plan of union be considered, in order that the colonies might act in concert in the coming struggle with the French, and if possible under a single government even. Seven colonies were represented at the conference. Twenty-five delegates were there to take part in the business; and there was no difficulty about securing their almost unanimous assent to a plan of union. They adopted the plan which Mr. Benjamin Franklin, one of Pennsylvania’s delegates, had drawn up as he made the long journey from Philadelphia.