these
tribes in the year 1754.

The all important council was to be held in Albany. Governor Hamilton
appointed four commissioners, of whom Franklin was one, to act in
behalf of Pennsylvania. They were furnished with rich gifts with which
to purchase the favor of the Indians. It was a long and tedious
journey from Philadelphia to Albany.

Franklin, on this journey, was deeply impressed with the importance of
a union of the colonies for self-defence. He therefore drew up a plan
for such union. Several gentlemen of the highest intelligence in New
York, having examined it, gave it their cordial approval. He
accordingly laid it before Congress.

There were several other persons in other colonies who were impressed
as deeply as Franklin with a sense of the importance of such a
confederacy, and they also sent in their suggestions.

Congress appointed a committee of one from each province, to consider
the several plans. The committee approved of Franklin's plan, and
reported accordingly. While the commissioners were conferring with the
Indians in Albany, Congress was engaged in discussing the plans of a
confederacy. Franklin's plan was finally rejected. It did not meet the
views either of the Assembly, or of the British Court. And here we
see, perhaps the germs of the great conflict which soon culminated in
the cruel war of the Revolution.

The Assembly objected to the plan as too aristocratic, conferring too
much power upon the crown. The court emphatically rejected it as too
democratic, investing the people with too much power. Franklin ever
affirmed that his plan was the true medium. Even the royalist governor
of Pennsylvania warmly commended the compromise he urged.

In visiting Boston he was shown an electric tube, recently sent from
England. With this tube some very surprising electrical experiments
were performed, ushering in a new science, of which then but very
little was known. Franklin became intensely interested in the subject.
Upon his return to Philadelphia, he devoted himself, with great
assiduity, to experimenting with electric tubes. At this time he wrote
to a friend,

"I never was before engaged in any study that so totally
engrossed my attention and my time, as this has lately done;
for what with making experiments when I can be alone, and
repeating them to my friends and acquaintances, who, from
the novelty of the thing, come continually in crowds to see
them, I have