Meanwhile the Colonies grew in population and power. No longer merely scattered settlements, they began to act a part in history. Anxious especially against French domination, already existing in Canada and extending along the Lakes to the Mississippi, they came together in Congress at Albany, in 1754, to take measures for the common defence. Delegates were present from seven Colonies, being all north of the Potomac. Here the genius of Benjamin Franklin prevailed. A plan from this master mind provided for what was called a “General Government,” administered by a “President-General and Grand Council,” where each Colony should have representatives in proportion to its contributions,--Massachusetts and Virginia having seven each, while New York had only four; and the first meeting of the “General Government” was to be at Philadelphia.[14] Local jealousy and pretension were then too strong for such a Union: and it found no greater favor in England; for there Union was “dreaded as the keystone of Independence.”[15] In defending this plan, Franklin, who had not yet entered into the idea of Independence, did not hesitate to say that he looked upon the Colonies “as so many counties gained to Great Britain,”[16]--employing an illustration which most forcibly suggested actual Unity. Though this experiment failed, it revealed the longing for one Cisatlantic government, and showed how under other auspices it might be accomplished. Little more than ten years elapsed before the same yearning for common life appeared again in the Colonial Congress at New York, convened in 1765, on the recommendation of Massachusetts, to arrest the tyranny of the Stamp Act and assaults upon the common liberties. Nine Colonies, after deliberation, united in a Declaration of Rights common to all. Here was the inspiration of James Otis, the youthful orator of Freedom, whose tongue of flame had already flashed the cry, “Taxation without representation is tyranny,” and that other cry, worthy of perpetual memory, “Equality and the power of the whole, without distinction of color.” These were voices that heralded our Nation. * * * * *