The campaign of 1754 had been utterly disastrous for the English settlers, but it only encouraged the indefatigable Robert Dinwiddie to further efforts. He saw that "if the misfortune attending our forces has aroused the spirit of our neighbouring colonies, it has done more than probably a victory could have effected."[283] He now did his best to still further arouse the united enthusiasm of the Middle and Southern colonies, and so stirred the Assembly of Virginia that it voted £20,000. The defeat of Washington also gave a stimulus to a movement towards unity that had already been made in the autumn of 1753. The delegates of the seven colonies of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, had met in friendly conference at Albany, and had listened to Benjamin Franklin's great scheme of union, under which a colonial Council of forty-eight members was to be formed, each colony supplying members according to its population. This Council was to have very important powers and privileges, including those of declaring peace or war. Had Franklin's statesmanlike proposals met with the general acceptance of the colonies, North America would have become one great self-governing community, having more independent powers than any of the present-day colonies of Great Britain. The time, however, was not yet ripe; the colonies were still too jealous of their own petty rights and privileges; and those who were acting for the welfare of the English in America did not at the moment wish to rush into some great revolutionary change in the constitution, but desired rather a firm attitude of resistance to the French aggressions in the Ohio valley. Dinwiddie found the task difficult enough. He wrote to the Governor of Pennsylvania that the colonies "seemed satisfied to leave the French at full liberty to perpetrate their utmost designs to their ruin."[284] But he did not despair, and asked help from New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and the Carolinas, and received encouraging replies from all the governors, except Glen of South Carolina. In his excellent work he was ably supported by William Shirley of Massachusetts, who, at this time, was working strenuously to stir the home government to realise the danger that threatened the Thirteen Colonies.