the French in Maine, in the competition for the fur trade of the
interior, had rendered the situation acute and led, very early, to the
proposal that a combination be effected.

But it was not until 1643 that anything was accomplished. In May of that
year, at the suggestion of Connecticut and New Haven, commissioners from
these colonies, and from Massachusetts and Plymouth also, met at Boston
and drafted a body of articles for a consociation or confederation to be
known as the United Colonies of New England, a form of union which found
a precedent in the federation of the Netherlands and corresponded in the
political field to the consociation of churches in the ecclesiastical.
Maine was not asked because, as a province belonging to Gorges, the
people there (to quote from Winthrop's _Journal_) "ran a different
course from the other colonies, both in their ministry and civil
administration, ... had lately made Acomenticus (a poor village) a
corporation, and had made a taylor their mayor, and had entertained one
Hull, an excommunicated person and very contentious, for their
minister." Rhode Island, as a seat of separatism and heresy, was not
invited and perhaps not even considered. For managing the affairs of the
confederation, the main objects of which were friendship and amity,
protection and defense, advice and succor, and the preservation of the
truth and purity of the Gospel, eight commissioners were provided, to be
chosen by the assemblies of the colonies and to represent the colonies
as independent political units. Meetings were to be held once a year in
one or other of the leading towns and a full record was to be kept of
the business done. The board thus established never did more than make
recommendations and offer advice, as it had no authority to execute any
of the plans that it might make; and although the records of its
meetings are lengthy and give evidence of elaborate discussion of
important matters, the results of its deliberations cannot be said to be
particularly significant.

The commissioners dealt with a number of local disputes of no great
moment and considered certain internal difficulties that threatened to
disturb the friendly intercourse among the colonies. For instance,
Connecticut had levied tolls at Saybrook on vessels going up the
Connecticut River to Springfield, and Massachusetts had retaliated by
laying duties on goods from other colonies entering her ports. Under
pressure from the com