While the Board of Trade, distracted by doubts whether the colonies could be more firmly held as separate governments or under a viceregal union, was engaged in considering the various propositions submitted to it, several neighborhood congresses were held by the provinces themselves, chiefly to treat with Indians or for purposes of defence. But these congresses were in no sense popular meetings; they were composed of the official class, and had little more effect on the people than to accustom them to the spectacle of colonial union for matters of common interest. Sidenotes: The second colonial congress. Its plan of union rejected. In 1754 the Lords of Trade recommended a second general congress of the colonies, to treat with the Iroquois again; they also favored "articles of union and confederation with each other for the mutual defence of his Majesty's subjects and interests in North America, as well in time of peace as war." The congress was held at Albany. Only seven of the colonies were represented,--New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. The convention adopted a plan of union prepared by Franklin, providing for a general government that should be self-sustaining and control federal affairs,--war, Indians, and public lands,--while the colonial governments were to retain their constitutions intact. The plan was rejected by the colonial assemblies. Franklin himself wrote: "The Crown disapproved it, as having too much weight in the democratic part of the constitution, and every assembly as having allowed too much to prerogative." The defeat of the Albany plan marks the end of efforts at union on the part of the official class. The next movement came from the people themselves, as the result of oppression on the part of the mother-country. 123. Quarrels with Royal Governors (1700-1750). Sidenote: Quarrels between governors and assemblies. The history of the English continental colonies during the first half of the seventeenth century was largely made up of petty bickerings between the popular assemblies and the royal governors. The salary question was the most prominent feature of these disputes. Acting under orders from the Crown, the governor in each colony insisted on being paid a regular salary at stated intervals; but the assembly as persistently refused, and desiring to keep him dependent upon them, voted from time to time such sums as they chose. The principle at stake was important: a fixed salary grant would have been in the nature of a tax imposed by the Crown. Had the assembly been complaisant, the government would have been thrown into the hands of the royal governor and council, through their absolute power to veto laws. The acrimonious contention was greatly disturbing to all material interests, but it served as a most valuable constitutional training school for the Revolution. Sidenote: The salary question in Massachusetts.