The history of the navigation laws suggests the similarity of the causes which led to the successive revolutions of 1689 and 1775 in Massachusetts. The violation of these laws was a principal reason for the abrogation of the first charter, in 1684, graphically described by Palfrey,[149] and their enforcement by courts of admiralty, under Dudley, Andros, and Randolph, was one cause of the overthrow of the Andros government in 1689.[150] The resistance to the same and additional enactments, when enforced as revenue measures, led to the alteration of the second charter in 1774, and this again led to revolution by the united colonies. One of the most efficient instruments in the execution of the navigation laws was the writs of assistance granted by the court in Massachusetts in 1761.[151] If the student of American history finds difficulty in accepting the common accounts of the constitutional opinions and motives of two fifths of the colonists, among whom were many who must be regarded as intelligent and respectable, his doubts as to the accuracy of these narratives receive some confirmation when he becomes familiar with the history of the Congress of 1754, the circumstances which led to it, and the opinions of some of its representative men. A comparison of their views will show how far they were willing to go in the "abridgment of English liberties", for the sake of union, defence, and government. Franklin, Hutchinson, and Pownall formed plans for union, and all were at Albany in 1754, and participated in the discussions, though Pownall, not being a member, explained his views outside the congress.[152] The difference between Pownall, Hutchinson, and Franklin was this: that while all contemplated the union of the empire under one general government as something dictated by the interest of all the parts, Hutchinson limited the power of the President more than Franklin, and Pownall was unwilling to contemplate the transfer of its seat to America; the prospect of which gave Franklin no concern. "The government cannot be long retained without union. Which is best, to have a total separation, or a change of the seat of government?"[153] Speculations as to the results of such a union are now idle, unless for the interest drawn towards them by Professor Seeley's _Expansion of England_, and Franklin's belief, expressed in 1789, "that if the foregoing plan [that of 1754], or something like it, had been adopted and carried into execution, the subsequent separation of the colonies from the mother country might not so soon have happened, nor the mischiefs suffered on both sides have occurred, perhaps, during another century."[154]