and his immediate friends. When, therefore, the Governor of New York, in his speech to the Indians, which was interpreted by Myndert Schuyler, hinted that the Six Nations did not increase their power at the expense of the enemy, Hendrick indignantly replied: "It is your fault, Brothers, that we are not strengthened by conquest. We would have gone and taken Crown Point, but you hindered us. We had concluded to go and take it, but we were told it was too late, and that the ice would not bear us. Instead of this, you burned your own fort at Saratoga and ran away from it, which was a shame and a scandal. Look around your country and see: you have no fortifications about

lettered pagans was a marvel. It was found by the Europeans, when they first came, in all its perfection. They called themselves Aquanuschioni-"united people"-and claimed to have sprung from the soil on which they dwelt, like the trees of the wilderness. Their confederacy was composed of separate independent communities, having distinct municipal laws, like the United Provinces of Holland. No nation of the League held a pre-eminence. They were originally five republics, confederated for mutual defense and conquest, and were known as the Five Nations until they were joined by the Tuscaroras from North Carolina, their kinsmen and friends, early in the last century. Then they became the Six Nations, called respectively, Mo-you-no, not even to this city. You have asked hawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas, us," he continued, "the reason of our living in and Tuscaroras. Each nation was divided into this dispersed manner. The reason is your negthree tribes or families, distinguished by separate lecting us these three years past." Then casting totums or heraldic insignia. They called their a stick behind him, he said: "You have thus confederacy the Long House. The eastern door thrown us behind your back and disregarded us, was kept by the Mohawks, the western by the whereas the French are a subtle and vigilant Senecas, the most warlike and yet the most civ-people, ever using their utmost endeavors to seilized of all. The great Council Fire, or Fed- duce and bring our people over to them. Look eral head, was with the Onondagas, not far from at the French! They are men; they are fortithe present city of Syracuse. Their power wasfying every where. But, we are ashamed to say known and felt over the whole region eastward it, you are like women, bare and open, without of the Mississippi to the most remote tribes on any fortifications. It is but one step from Canthe Gulf of St. Lawrence. They possessed an ada hither, and the French may easily come and exalted spirit of liberty, and spurned with dis- turn you out of doors." dain every foreign and domestic shackle of con- This was wholesome rebuke for De Lancey trol. Almost a hundred years before Jefferson and others who had been long engaged in partiwrote the Declaration of Independence Garangu-san and personal contests, to the detriment of la, a venerable Onondaga sachem, said to the the province. It was listened to with patience, Governor-General of Canada, who had menaced and mutual promises of good conduct were given. the confederacy with destruction, "WE ARE The treaties were renewed, and Hendrick, speakBORN FREE! We neither depend on Yonondio ing for the Six Nations, said: "We return you [Governor of Canada] nor Corlear [Governor of all our grateful acknowledgments for renewing New York]. We may go where we please, and and brightening our covenant chain. We will carry with us whom we please, and buy and sell take this belt to Onondaga [the Federal capital what we please." Such were the people whose of the Six Nations], where our council-fire alfriendship the English Government and the An-ways burns, and keep it so securely that neither glo-American colonists now sought. Their rep-thunder nor lightning shall break it. There we resentatives appeared in the Congress at Albany, will consult over it, and we hope when you show led by Hendrick, a gray-haired and much-loved Mohawk warrior and orator, who gave his life the next year at Lake George in testimony of his faithfulness to the pledges he and his people now made to the English.

De Lancey presided over the deliberations of the Congress. The Indian business was first taken up, and the discussion of it occupied several days. Hendrick was the chief speaker on the part of the savages. He was bold as well as eloquent, and frankly assured the Congress that the neglect of the Six Nations by the white people, and their delay in erecting defenses against the French during the long years of bitter personal and political strife which had cursed the province of New York, had almost lost to the English the friendship of the Iroquois Confederacy. Full one-half of the Onondagas had withdrawn and joined the French at the mouth of the Oswegatchie, in Northern New York, and many of the Mohawks were kept from doing likewise only by the exertions of Hendrick

this belt again we shall give you reason to rejoice at it. In the mean time we desire that you will strengthen yourselves, and bring as many into this covenant chain as you possibly can."

With the renewal of the treaties with the Six Nations the principal business of the Congress, contemplated by the Home Government, was concluded. But the commissioners had a topic for consideration, which the Lords of Trade had suggested in part, of far greater ultimate importance than the friendship of all the savage tribes on the continent. It was that of a political union of all the colonies, not for immediate use only, as the British Government desired, but for all time. Some of the colonists had long thought of the measure. The New England Confederacy of 1643 had been practically suggestive. As early as 1697 the wise William Penn had proposed an annual Congress of all the provinces on the continent, with power to regulate commerce. For ten years Samuel Adams, of

city of Philadelphia should, for the present, be the Federal capital; that there should be a new election for the Grand Council every three years, the number from each colony being proportioned to the amount of contributions of each to the public treasury, and in case of a vacancy the place might be supplied at the next sitting of the Assembly of the colony to be represented; that at no time should any colony have more than seven nor less than two members, the apportionment to vary within these limits with the

Massachusetts, had been advocating it; and the delegates of his province were instructed to propose the measure in the Congress. Franklin had thought much and spoken frequently on the subject ever since the kindling of King George's War, ten years before, when Shirley called upon all the colonies for collective aid. And a month before the assembling of the Congress, after narrating in his Pennsylvania Gazette the encroachments of the French in the Ohio country, and urging union to resist their aggressions, he said: "The confidence of the French in this under-ratio of pecuniary contributions; that the Grand taking seems well-founded in the present dis- Council should meet at least once in every year, united state of the British colonies, and the ex- or might be summoned to meet by the Presidenttreme difficulty of bringing so many different General, on an emergency, when he should obgovernments and assemblies to agree in any tain the consent in writing of seven of the memspeedy and effectual measures for our common bers, and due notice sent to all; that the Grand defense and security; while our enemies have Council should have power to choose their own the very great advantage of being under one di- Speakers, and should neither be dissolved nor rection, with one council and one purse." To prorogued, nor made to sit longer than six give force to his suggestions Franklin printed at weeks at one time without their own consent the end of this article a significant wood-cut, the or the special command of the Crown; that ten design of which was used with great effect at shillings a day should be allowed to the memthe head of newspapers at the beginning of the bers of the Grand Council for their services durRevolution. It represented a snake separated ing their sessions, or journey to and from their into thirteen parts, on each of which was the in-place of meeting, twenty miles to be reckoned a itial of one of the thirteen colonies. Under the day's journey; that the assent of the Presidentsnake were the suggestive words, JOIN OR DIE. General should be requisite to all acts of the On the 24th of June the Congress, by unani-Grand Council, and that it should be his office mous vote, declared that a union of the colonies was "absolutely necessary for their security and defense;" and they appointed a committee "to prepare and receive plans or schemes" for that purpose, and to "digest them into one general plan" for the inspection of the Congress. The committee was composed of one delegate from each colony represented in the Congress, and one member of the Council of the Governor of New York. Dr. Franklin was the representative of Pennsylvania in that committee, and at their first meeting he submitted a "Plan of pro-ey, and to enact laws in conformity with the posed union of the several Colonies, for their British Constitution, and not in contravention mutual defense and security, and for extending of statutes passed by the imperial Parliament; the British Settlements in North America," that all laws should be transmitted to the King which he had digested, carefully prepared, and in Council for approbation, as soon as may be submitted to the judgment of some leading men after their passage, and if not disapproved within New York whom he considered "gentlemen in three years after presentation to remain in of great knowledge in public affairs." Frank- force; that the general accounts should be yearlin's plan was regarded with so much favor byly settled and reported to the several Assemblies; his associates that they adopted it as the voice that in the event of the death of the Presidentof the Committee. It was reported to the Con- General, the Speaker of the Grand Council, or gress on the 10th of July, and paragraph by par-President of the Senate, should succeed him, and agraph debated all day, and adopted. It pro- be vested with the same power and authority, posed that a Union should be established by an until the pleasure of the King should be made act of Parliament; that the government should known; that all military officers for land or sea be administered by a President-General appoint- service to act under the Constitution should be ed and supported by the Crown, assisted by a nominated by the President-General, but be comGrand Council to be chosen by the representa- missioned only when they receive the approbatives of the people of the several colonies when tion of the Grand Council; that all civil officers met in their respective Assemblies; that the should be nominated by the Grand Council, and Council should consist of forty-eight members, receive the President-General's approbation bethe number for each colony being determined at first by the population, twenty-five being a quo-5; Rhode Island, 2; New York, 4; New Jersey, 3; Pennrum for the transaction of business;* that the

The following was the apportionment then proposed: Massachusetts Bay, 7; New Hampshire, 2; Connecticut,

and duty to cause them to be carried into execution; that the President-General, with the advice and consent of the Grand Council or Senate, should have the appointment of all military officers, the management of Indian treaties, and of all Indian affairs in general; that the Grand Council should make laws for regulating new settlements or territories, until the Crown should think fit to form them into governments; that the Grand Council should have control of the armies, the apportionment of men and mon

sylvania, 6; Maryland, 4; Virginia, 7; North Carolina, 4;

South Carolina, 4. Georgia had then been settled only about twenty years, and was not accounted a separate colony in the proposed Union.

fore they should officiate; that vacancies in any | lin, “all thought there was too much prerogative province might be filled by the Governor there- in the Plan, and in England it was thought to of, subject to the approval of the General Coun- have too much of the democratic." On that accil; that the particular military and civil estab-count he considered his plan near the true melishments in each colony should remain undis-dium.

turbed; and that in sudden emergencies any col

The plan of the Lords of Trade, embodying

ony might defend itself, the expense thereof, ac- the earliest-devised scheme for directly taxing cording to the judgment of the President-Gen- the English colonies in America, was communieral and Grand Council, to be laid upon the Gen-cated to Dr. Franklin by Governor Shirley, and eral Government.

drew from the former, five months after the adjournment of the Congress at Albany, an able letter to the latter "on the imposition of direct taxes upon the colonies without their consent." In this letter he maintained, in effect, the grand postulate on which the colonists rested for justification when, a few years later, they hurled the gauntlet of defiance at the feet of the British Ministry; namely, TAXATION WITHout RepreSENTATION IS TYRANNY.

Although the Congress at Albany failed in efforts to establish a national government, and the bright visions of the people faded into dim dissolving views for the moment, their hopes and resolution were not diminished. The foundations of a future independent State were laid deeply in the minds and hearts of all thoughtful men. The idea of nationality was one of im mense power, and it began a revolution which took no retrograde step. The Seven Years' War that ensued caused a wonderful moral and material development of the resources of the colonists, and revealed to them their innate strength. It trained for future struggles for the right many a brave soldier on whom they might rely; and

This Plan of Union was approved by all the delegates except those from Connecticut. De Lancey, the royalist, opposed it, because the Governors of the several provinces were deprived by it of a negative on all elections to the Grand Council-a privilege that would have placed the colonists at the mercy of their royal rulers. This Plan, it will be observed, was a sort of compromise between Monarchy and Democratic Republicanism. It recognized the supremacy of the Crown, but granted to the people the right of representation and self-taxation, and of legislation of every kind; subject, however, to the negative of the King in council. It was an attempt to lay the foundations of an independent State upon the rock of the Rights of Man, without trenching sufficiently upon the acknowledged prerogatives of the Crown to incur its hostility. It failed. Although it was cherished in the Congress as the work of a patriotic statesman, and a foster-child of which they might be proud, and the citizens of New York filled the ears of Franklin with compliments when he landed in that city from an Albany sloop on the 17th of July, when it was sub-when peace was established by treaty in 1763, mitted to the several Colonial Assemblies who represented the American people, and to the Lords of Trade who were the oracles of the Crown in the matter, both rejected it. The Assemblies looked upon it with little favor, because, jealous of their individual rights, they repelled the overruling influence of a central power even though it should be created by themselves. It did not assert a national independence, which had been " the topic of many a day-dream in the colonies for a hundred years; and they were afraid that, in addition to the already oppressive power of the Crown, they might be subjected to a tyranny nearer and more potential in the form of that dreaded central power. So they rejected it.

The Lords of Trade saw in the plan too much of the democratic idea and a proclivity to national independence. They were astonished at the presumption of the Congress; and they not only did not lay the Plan before the King, but submitted a new one highly repugnant to the Americans. They proposed that the Governors of all the colonies, attended by one or two mem.bers of their respective councils, should assemble in congress, concert measures for the public defense, erect forts where they judged proper, and raise what troops they thought necessary, with power to draw on the British exchequer for the sums that should be wanted, the treasury to be reimbursed by a tax laid on the colonies by act of Parliament! "The Assemblies," said Frank

the Anglo-American colonists felt such a consciousness of strength that when, two years later, their representatives assembled in another Colonial Congress, they talked boldly of RIGHTS instead of EXPEDIENTS.

NOT AT MY EXPENSE.

"I CAN'T stand that any longer, and I won't

said I, in a determined way, moving back from the window.

"Can't stand what, Mr. Goldsmith?" asked my wife, pausing in her half-made toilet, and looking at me curiously.

"People may enjoy themselves riding out in the breezy morning, but not at my expense." I shut my teeth hard and contracted my eyebrows; for I was moved by an impulse of sudden anger.

"Who is riding out at your expense, Mr. Goldsmith?"

"The man who went clattering by just now. Every morning he goes past, with head and body erect, saucy and defiant. How he can look an honest man in the face from such an clevation is more than I am able to understand. And he sha'n't do it long. I've made up my mind to that. I can't afford to take horseback rides in the morning, and nobody else shall do so at my expense."

"Why do you say at your expense?" quietly

asked my wife.

When I am disturbed she is A fortunate circumstance, as I have had occasion many times to know.

usually calm.

"Cline keeps a fast trotter," said I, "which doesn't look well for a clerk. "He's retained a few nest-eggs, no doubt. I can't afford to

"He's in my debt: that's why I say it," was keep a horse; and I don't feel inclined to let my answer.

"Oh! I understand."

My wife said only this, but her tone was not satisfactory. Somehow it let into my mind a perception that what I had said did not lift me higher in her regard.

"And he sha'n't keep a fast horse at my expense," I further said, in a dogged manner. Now that word fast was thrown in to make weight on the side of my indignation; for touching the animal's speed I was in the dark. “When a man fails and cheats his creditors it's about time to leave the road to honest men." "Who is it?" inquired my wife. "His name is Cline." "Edward Cline?"

"Yes. He was in the firm of Pettis, James, and Co. They made a bad failure of it. My loss was nearly five hundred dollars."

"He married Lucy Jardin,” said my wife, not taking the five hundred dollars any more into account than if the loss had been five hundred cents, much to my annoyance. The fact is, Mrs. Goldsmith is not a worldly-minded woman. She doesn't care a great deal for fine dress or fine furniture. Isn't, in fact, half as much in the love of appearances as I am. She provokes me dreadfully with her indifference to these things sometimes. But it might be worse, of The other extreme I should find a little

course.

expensive.

"I believe so," was my cold reply. "Poor Lucy! We were school-girls, and I was very fond of her. What is her husband doing?"

"Clerking it, I'm told." My wife sighed.

"And enjoying himself with a fine horse at my expense," I threw in, with a severity of tone that, knowing Mrs. Goldsmith as I do, must have hurt her gentle nature, even though I meant nothing against herself.

"He was not in very good health, I believe, at the time of their marriage."

"I don't know any thing about that," said I, indifferently. The fact is, I was feeling so hard toward Mr. Cline, that it was scarcely possible to interest me favorably in any thing that concerned him.

any body else keep one at my expense.
can seize the horse at any rate."

You

"If he doesn't sell it before we get judgment." "Is there no process by which an attachment can be at once issued ?" I inquired.

"None," answered the lawyer. "And I'm afraid you'll make yourself costs for nothing. Cline will hardly wait until judgment is obtained before parting with his horse. Our execution will be returned by the sheriff as worthless.”

"No matter," said I; "he sha'n't ride a fine horse at my expense. I've settled that point. For the last two weeks he's gone dashing, jauntily, past my house every morning as grand as a prince, and I won't stand it any longer."

So the suit was brought. I didn't get the horse; but there was no more riding out in the morning. Mr. Cline had to come down to the level of his creditor and walk if he desired an airing. What did I gain by all this? you ask. I might answer: The satisfaction of knowing that Mr. Cline was compelled to walk at his own expense instead of riding at mine. But truth compels me to say that I did not receive much pleasure from this view of the case. It was not half so comforting as I had believed it would be. I was disquieted by the transaction. Sugges tions, not a shadow of which intruded before, were now cast into my thoughts, and I could not put them away.

I did not see any thing more of Mr. Cline for nearly two months after the morning horseback rides were given up. But in spite of many efforts to put him out of my mind I could not remove the unpleasant subject. One day I met him on the street. We came face to face suddenly, recognizing each other with cold formality. This meeting did not add to my comfortable feelings. I would not have taken the impression it left with me in exchange for twenty horses-no, nor for twenty score. The thin, almost colorless face, and the large bright eyes that flashed into mine, haunted me all day long. A few days afterward I met him again. We looked at each other, nodded distantly, and passed. His appearance troubled me. "Why so ?" I asked of myself. "What is Mr. Cline to me?" A suspicion of the truth was crowding in upon me, but I sought to keep it out.

The subject was not a pleasant one to discuss with my wife, and so it was dropped. She doesn't sympathize with me in matters of business and gain to the degree I would like. Some-nance was not animated. times she annoys me so much by this want of sympathy that I am tempted to say things, which, if said, it would grieve me to remember. Generally I manage to keep silent.

"I saw my old friend Mrs. Cline to-day," said my wife, a week or two later. I glanced toward her but made no remark. Her counte

On my way to the store, after dinner, I called at the office of a lawyer, and placed my claim against the late firm of Pettis, James, and Co. in his hand, and told him to make what he could out of it.

"She called at Mrs. Everett's while I was there. I was very glad to see her. It is such a long time since we met before. Poor Lucy! She is in a great deal of trouble about her husband."

"What of her husband?" I asked, covering by an assumed hardness of manner the real interest I felt.

"He's in very bad health."

"Ah! Is he?"

"Yes. Confinement at the desk for over ten hours a day is simply destroying his life: so Lucy says. They would break up and go into the country-where he could be out of doors a great deal, and get that exercise in the open air which is essential to his health-but they have five little children, and all their dependence is on Mr. Cline's salary. The change on which his very life depends they can not make. Their case is a very hard one, and I've been sad over it ever since I saw Lucy."

said I, under the impulse of troubled feelings. And I turned this hastily-formed purpose over in my thoughts, but soon dismissed it as out of the question. Of course he would not accept a horse from me. Why should he?

"That young man of yours has a bad cough," said I, listening toward the counting-room, from which came the sound that had arrested my attention. I had called upon a merchant for the transaction of some business.

"Yes," he answered, with a slight change of manner; "a cough that will soon take him to his grave, poor fellow!"

Our business conversation was then resumed. "Dreadful!" I could not help ejaculating, as another paroxysm of coughing seized the clerk. "It is very painful," said the merchant, showing nearly as much annoyance as sympathy.

"Has he a family?" I asked.

"Yes; a wife and five children," replied the merchant.

"Oh dear! That is bad."

I made no response, and Mrs. Goldsmith said nothing farther on the subject. Of course I felt uncomfortable. I am not cruel; only a little hard, at times, in exacting my own, and not always as considerate toward the unfortunate as genuine humanity would prompt. The fact is, I can never put clearly out of my mind a sus-"The fact is, he is not fit to work, and ought picion of wrong when I do not get my own. I to be at home instead of in the counting-room. pay every body honestly, and expect every body I've intimated as much several times; but he to pay me honestly. Failing to receive what is will come, day after day, and tie himself down justly my due I lapse into the impression that to the desk, though it is killing him." wrong is intended, which often induces a line of conduct that my feelings can not afterward approve. That it was so in the present case I need not affirm. I saw things under certain changed relations. The morning rides on horseback had been to Mr. Cline as essential as food. They made an item of cost in his living that could no more be dispensed with safely than the item for meat or bread. Taking my constitution and state of health, horseback-riding might be indulged or dispensed with, and only slight differ-toned, honorable man, and the failure hurt him ence of loss and gain appear. This contrast in a great deal more than the loss of his money; the two cases, now so clearly seen, troubled me for it was a bad failure, as you are aware. Well, not a little. you see, after he was thrown out I gave him a But as I had not seized Mr. Cline's horse-place in my counting-room. But confinement only made it necessary for him to part with the animal to prevent my seizing it under execution -I could not see the way clear in any act looking to the restoration of a state of things which my unfortunate proceeding had disturbed. So I pushed the matter resolutely aside. But the consequences of our acts continually witness against us. I had done wrong; and the wrong lifted its hands and cried out.

It so happened now that I met Mr. Cline, on my way to and from business, almost every day. We seemed to have adopted the same hour for dining, and to occupy about the same time at our meals. To get rid of his pale, rebuking face, and of his large bright eyes, that seemed to look at me accusingly, I altered my dinner-time, so that it might come half an hour later.

'Yes, a hard case enough, and I'm very sorry for him. It's Mr. Cline, lately in the firm of Pettis, James, and Co. He had a few thousand dollars left him by an aunt, and Pettis and James took him in for the sake of his capital, which was lost in a year or two. He is a high

The

at the desk soon began to break him down, and his doctor said that he must ride on horseback every morning. He made some demur, on the ground of his condition as a debtor, and said that it would subject him to unfavorable judgments in the minds of certain people. I joined with the doctor, who is my own physician, in overruling that view of the case, and went so far as to advance money to purchase a horse. morning rides worked to a charm. He gained in flesh, and went through his counting-house labors without further apparent detriment to health. But this was not to last. A keensighted creditor of Pettis, James, and Co. discovered that he was keeping a fast horse and enjoying himself at his expense; so he pounced on him, in order to get the horse. The poor fellow broke down at this, sold the animal, and returned the advance I had made. I offered to buy it back, and hold it as my own, he simply to pay the stable-keeper's bill, and use the animal as before. To this he would not consent. It will only subject me to misunderstanding and annoyance,' he replied. 'I will walk in the mornings; that will keep me up.' But the walks exhausted instead of invigorating him. He's been running down very rapidly ever since, "I will make him the present of a horse!" and is past all hope, I fear, of benefit from med

The sound of hoofs were in the street one morning at half past six o'clock. I looked forth with interest. No circumstance could have given more pleasure than the sight of Mr. Cline on horseback. He might have ridden the gayest animal in town without annoyance to me. But the pale clerk was not out for an airing. I turned from the window with a sigh, thinking of his wasting form and of his five little children.