it was judged to have too much of the democratic. The different and contrary reasons of dislike to my plan make me suspect that it was really the true medium: and I am still of opinion it would have been happy for both sides if it had been adopted. The colonies so united would have been sufficiently strong to have defended themselves: there would then have been no need of troops from England; of course the subsequent pretext for taxing America, and the bloody contest it occasioned, would have been avoided.” The plan proposed may be found in Franklin’s _Works_ (Sparks, i. 36), (London, 1833, v. 299); _N. Y. Col. Doc._, vi. 889. The proceedings of the Congress in _N. Y. Col. Doc._, vi. 853, other accounts of the Congress by members; Hutchinson, _Hist. Mass. Bay_, iii. 19–25; William Smith, _History of New York_, ii. 180; Stephen Hopkins, _A true representation of the plan formed at Albany (in 1754) for uniting all the British northern Colonies, in order to their common safety and defence_ (_R. I. Historical Tracts_, No. 9). For an excellent brief statement of the attempts at consolidation and plans suggested for that purpose, see Winsor, _Narrative and Critical History of the U. S._, v. 611. [153] The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts was founded in 1701. A previous organization bearing a similar name had been founded during the period of the Commonwealth, especially for work among the aborigines in New England, and it is to this association that we owe that most interesting of missionary relics, Eliot’s Indian Bible. Great interest was taken in this by the celebrated Robert Boyle, and scholarships were endowed by Sir Leoline Jenkyns in Jesus College, Oxford, one condition of which was that the beneficiary should devote his life after taking his degree to missionary work in the plantations. The reports of Commissary Bray, who had been sent out to Maryland, of the spiritual destitution of the American colonies and of the difficulties under which the ministers of the Church of England labored, led to the organization and incorporation of the Society, which has been from that day to this an active agency in the spread of religion and knowledge in the colonies of Great Britain. Humphreys, _Historical Account of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel_. Hawkins, _Missions of the Church of England_. [154] For a full account of this most interesting revolution, see E. Edwards Beardsley, D. D., _The History of the Church in Connecticut_. See also _Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D. D._, and _Yale College and the Church_ (_History of the American Episcopal Church_, vol. i. 561). Humphreys, _Historical Account_, 339.