but if notwithstanding your requisition, they should still persist, you are then to draw forth the armed Force of the Province, and to use your best endeavours, to repell force by force. But as it is His Majesty's determination not to be the agressor, I have the King's commands, most strictly to enjoin you, not to make use of the armed force under your direction, excepting within the undoubted limits of his Majesty's dominions.
And whereas it may be greatly conducive to His Majesty's service, that all his Provinces in America should be aiding and assisting each other, in case of any invasion, I have it particularly in charge from his Majesty, to acquaint you, that it is his Royal will and pleasure, that you should keep up an exact correspondence with all His Majesty's Governors on the Continent ; and in case you shall be informed by any of them, of any hostile attempts, you are immediately to assemble the general assembly within your Government, and lay before them, the necessity of a mutual assistance, and engage them to grant such supplies as the exigency of affairs may require. — I have wrote by this conveyance to all his Majesty's Govrs to the same purpose.
E. B. O'Callaghan, editor, Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New-York (Albany, 1855), VI, 794-795.
125. The Albany Plan of Union (1754)
BY CHIEF JUSTICE STEPHEN HOPKINS
Hopkins was one of the first to see the need of unity of action among the colonies. He was governor of Rhode Island at intervals from 1755 to about 1770, and later became a member of the Continental Congress. The plan submitted at Albany failed of acceptance by either the colonies or the mother country. — Bibliography: Rider, Rhode Island Historical Tracts, No. 9, ix-xx; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, VI, 65-66; Channing and Hart, Guide, § 132.
THUS having seen Abstracts of the Authorities given the Commissioners who were at Albany, and of those Letters from the Crown, which occasioned such Authorities to be given ; together with the State of the British and French Colonies in America, and the proposed Plan of Union, formed in Consequence of the whole : From an impartial View thereof, let every Man judge, Whether it was not the Intent of all the Colonies who sent Commissioners, that they should form some General Scheme or Plan, for the Safety and Defence of the English Colo-
