"The king attempted a more efficient method of administering the colonies; and, in May 1696, a Board of Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, consisting of the chancellor, the president of the privy council, the keeper of the privy seal, the two secretaries of state, and eight special commissioners, was called into being. To William Blathwayte, who had drafted the new charter of Massachusetts, John Locke, and the rest of the commission, instructions were given by the crown 'to inquire into the means of making the colonies most useful and beneficial to England; into the staples and manufactures which may be encouraged there, and the means of diverting them from trades which May prove prejudicial to England; to examine into and weigh the acts of the assemblies; to set down the usefulness or mischief of them to the crown, the kingdom, or the plantations themselves; to require an account of all the moneys given for public uses by the assemblies of the plantations, and how the same are employed.' The administration of the several provinces had their unity in the person of the king, whose duties with regard to them were transacted through one of the secretaries of state; but the Board of Trade was the organ of inquiries and the centre of colonial information. Every law of a provincial legislature, except in some of the charter governments, if it escaped the veto of the royal governor, might be arrested by the unfavorable opinion of the law officer of the crown, or by the adverse report of the Board of Trade. Its rejection could come only from the king in council. … The Board of Trade was hardly constituted before it was summoned to plan unity in the military efforts of the provinces; and Locke with his associates despaired, on beholding them 'crumbled into little governments, disunited in interests, in an ill posture and much worse disposition to afford assistance to each other for the future.' The Board, in 1697, 'after considering with their utmost care,' could only recommend the appointment of 'a captain-general of all the forces and all the militia of all the provinces on the continent of North America, with power to levy and command them for their defence, under such limitations and instructions as to his majesty should seem best.' … With excellent sagacity—for true humanity perfects the judgment—William Penn matured a plan of a permanent union, by a national representation of the American States. On the 8th day of February 1697, he delivered his project for an annual 'congress,' as he termed it, of two delegates from each province. … But the ministry adopted neither the military dictatorship of Locke and his associates, nor the peaceful congress of William Penn." _G. Bancroft, History of the United States (Author's last revision), part 3, chapter 4 (volume 2)._