Having succeeded in the first part of his campaign, Goddard went a step forward, and drew up a plan for an independent American post office, and laid it before the committees of correspondence in all the colonies.[89] His proposition was that the colonial post office should be established and maintained by subscription, and that its control should be vested in a committee to be appointed annually by the subscribers. This committee would appoint postmasters and post riders, and fix the rates of postage. The immediate management of the service was to be under the direction of a postmaster general to be selected by ballot, and who should hold his office by a yearly tenure. Goddard set about procuring subscribers for his scheme, and, it would seem, with much success. In the meantime, however, events were taking place which brought into being a body of more authority than the committees of correspondence, and this body took over the establishment of an American post office. The punitive measures of the ministry which followed upon the Boston riots had the unexpected result of uniting all the colonies into common cause with Boston. In September 1774, the delegates of the colonies assembled in congress at Philadelphia, and by degrees took upon themselves all the functions of government. On the 29th of May, 1775, the question of providing for the speedy and secure conveyance of intelligence was submitted to the congress, and a committee, of which Benjamin Franklin was the leading member, was directed to make a report.[90] With the report before it, on July 26, the congress resolved[91] to appoint a postmaster general for the United Colonies, whose office would be at Philadelphia, and who was empowered to appoint a secretary and as many postmasters as seemed to him proper and necessary. A line of posts should be established from Falmouth to Savannah, with as many cross posts as the postmaster general saw fit. Goddard was a candidate for the position of postmaster general, but Benjamin Franklin was chosen. Goddard's friends then made an effort to secure to him the secretaryship. In this, also, he was disappointed, as Franklin selected his son-in-law, Bache, for the place, an appointment which brought down upon Franklin a charge of nepotism. It seems certain, however, that in no case would he have entrusted the secretaryship to Goddard. Goddard had been postmaster of Providence, and when he relinquished the office, he was a defaulter for a considerable amount.[92] As the loss from Goddard's defalcation fell partly upon Franklin, as joint deputy postmaster general, the latter would be reluctant to place him a second time in a position of responsibility. Notwithstanding the claims he would seem to have created for himself by his work in organizing the colonial post office, Goddard had to be contented with the surveyorship of the posts.[93]