[Commissions, military and civil, for officers acting under this constitution, to be issued jointly by President-General and Grand Council.]--That the particular, Military as well as Civil establishments in each Colony remain in their present State this General constitution notwithstanding. And that on sudden emergencies any Colony may defend itself, and lay the accounts of expence, thence arisen, before the President General and Grand Council, who may allow and order payment of the same if judged reasonable. [In 1789 Franklin wrote, with good reason, that the adoption of the Albany Plan would have probably delayed the separation of the colonies from England, "perhaps during another century." There would have been a central legislature to vote supplies and prepare defense against Indians and French, and the British reasons for the Stamp Act would not have existed.] FOOTNOTES: [91] The first part of this act is copied almost word for word from an act of the Long Parliament in 1651. That act, however, was not enforced. It applied only to shipping. The Act of 1660 added the "enumerating" clause (XVIII). [92] Question having arisen in regard to the definition of English-built ships and English mariners, these terms were defined in section V of the Act of 1662 (14 Car. II, c. 11). The portion of the section relating to mariners follows: "And whereas it is required by the said Act that in sundry cases the Master and three fourths of the Mariners are to be English, it is to be understood that any of His Majesties Subjects of England, Ireland, _and His Plantations_ are to bee accounted English, and no others. ..."--_Statutes of the Realm_, V, 395. [93] The sugar from the English colonies also paid duties on admission into English ports (lower than these here prescribed for _foreign_ sugars); but such duties were to be rebated, according to this section IX, upon reëxportation. [94] The name "New England" still applied to all English America north of Delaware Bay. [95] This was the first charter provision for appeal from a colonial court to England. The question had arisen just before in connection with the New England colonies. Cf. _American History and Government_, # 99. [96] This was the first provision for a direct English veto upon colonial laws. [97] All italics are by the editor. The Pennsylvania charter distinctly recognized the right of Parliament to tax the colonists. These clauses, with those regarding appeals and the royal veto, were added to Penn's draft by the King's Attorney-General. [98] This grant was also in the "Laws Agreed upon in England," XXXV. [99] That act decreed that, in order to vote, a man must own "fifty acres of land, ... twelve acres thereof, or more, cleared and improved; or be otherwise worth fifty pounds lawful money" above all indebtedness.