Once, however, more than twenty years before the Revolutionary War, there had been some talk of a union of colonies, beginning with the suggestions of the most far-sighted man in America, Benjamin Franklin. In 1754, when war between France and England was on the point of breaking out, there was a meeting at Albany of delegates from several colonies. They had come to see if they could make sure of the aid of the Six Nations of Indian tribes; and here the sagacious Franklin brought forward his plan for a union. His scheme was for the colonies to elect a Grand Council, which should meet every year in Philadelphia, to levy taxes, enlist soldiers, plan for defense, and, in short, to attend to whatever concerned all the colonies. Whatever affected them separately was to be managed by the colony interested. This Council was to have much the same powers as our Congress of to-day; but there must be a place in the scheme for the King, of course; so Franklin proposed that the King should appoint a president who should have the right to veto the acts of the Grand Council. This was the "Albany Plan." Franklin was much in earnest about the matter, and had a cut made for the _Pennsylvania Gazette_ picturing a rather unpleasant device, a snake sliced uncomfortably into ten parts, the head marked "NE," for New England, and each of the other pieces with the initials of some one of the other nine colonies. With the motto, "Unite or die," this work of art appeared for a number of issues at the head of the _Gazette_; but many years passed before the colonies began to make any practical use of the wisdom of Franklin in 1754. CHAPTER IV THE LAND OF MANY FLAGS When Paul Revere galloped through the villages of Middlesex, calling "for the country folk to be up and to arm," there was not much spare time for collecting flags, and probably when "The farmers gave them ball for ball, From behind each fence and farmyard wall,"-- they did not trouble themselves to flourish a flag before they shot. Yet, if we may trust a family tradition, at least one flag waved over the plucky farmers. It seems that for a long while one member or another of the Page family of Bedford had been accustomed to carrying the colors of the militia, and therefore when the alarm was given and Nathaniel Page started for Concord, it was as natural for him to seize his flag as his gun. Moreover, this story has the bunting to back it up, for the Bedford flag remained in the Page family until presented to the town a century after the close of the war. It is rather a pity that it did not come a little sooner, for an old lady of Page descent confessed that in her giddy girlhood she had irreverently ripped off the silver fringe to make trimming for her ball dress.