[181-4] Richard Jebb, Studies in Colonial Nationalism, London, 1905, p.138.
[182-1] F. S. Oliver, Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union, London, 1906, p. 452.
[182-2] For a history of the General Arbitration Treaty of 1911 between America and the British Isles and its full text as proposed and as ratified, see H.S. Perris, Pax Britannica, London, 1913, pp. 285-298, 801-807.
{184}
VIII
A COMMON GOVERNMENT
WHO, first of all, dreamed of closer union between England (or Great Britain) and its colonies we do not know. As early as 1652 there came from Barbados a suggestion. It was in no way followed up. Colonel Thomas Modyford "desires, although it may seem immodest, that two representatives should be chosen by the island to sit and vote in the English parliament."[184-1]
In the following century Benjamin Franklin devised a scheme of union and laboured to commend it to the makers of Pan-Angle history. In June 1754 he attended a conference of eleven of the colonies met at Albany to consider defence against the Indians. That matter disposed of, Franklin submitted a plan for the union of the {185} colonies.[185-1] Later in the year he wrote as follows to Shirley, Royal Governor of Massachusetts: "Since the conversation your Excellency was pleased to honor me with, on the subject of uniting the colonies more intimately with Great Britain, by allowing them representatives in Parliament, I have something further considered that matter, and am of opinion that such a union would be very acceptable to the colonies, provided they had a reasonable number of representatives allowed them; . . .
"I should hope, too, that by such a union the people of Great Britain and the people of the colonies would learn to consider themselves as not belonging to different communities with different interests, but to one community with one interest; which I imagine would contribute to strengthen the whole, and greatly lessen the danger of future separations. . . .
"Now, I look on the colonies as so many countries gained to Great Britain, and more advantageous to it than if they had been gained out of the seas around its coasts and joined to its lands; . . . and since they are all included in the British empire, which has only extended itself by their means, and the strength and wealth of the parts are the strength and wealth of the whole, what imports it to the general state whether a merchant, a smith, or a hatter grows rich in Old or New England? . . . And if there be any difference, those who have most contributed to enlarge Britain's empire and commerce, increase her strength, her wealth, and {186} the numbers of her people, at the risk of their own lives and private fortunes in new and strange countries, methinks ought rather to expect some preference."[186-1]