in Congress, by more than one of the Delegates, that it was “big with destruction to the Colonies,” and one of them undertook, at a future day, to prove it so; but near six months have elapsed, and it is not done. We are told that it is “idle, dangerous, whimsical, and ministerial.” Such are the opprobrious epithets which these angry gentlemen have bestowed upon it, but the publick is not favoured with a single argument to prove it deserving of any of them. The merits of the plan remain uncanvassed and unsullied but by their abuse, supported by their defamatory assertions only. And such is the inconsistency of human conduct, when it becomes subservient to bad designs, that we ever find it like the winds, perpetually changing from point to point, until it blows opposite blasts, and incurs the most palpable contradictions. Thus the enemies to this plan, finding their attempts to persuade the publick by their positive assertions to believe that it was something very wicked and inconsistent with the true interest of America, unwillingly glide into an acknowledgment of its merit. For this same plan, which not long since was pronounced idle, dangerous, whimsical, and ministerial, is now of a sudden become, instead of an “idle and whimsical plan,” the real child of a truly worthy great man, and one of the first philosophers of the present age; instead of being “dangerous to America,” it is the child of the warmest, wisest, and most zealous of the friends of America; and instead of being ministerial, it is the act of a gentleman the most antiministerial of any one living. And we are further told, in the same Journal, that it was not inserted in the Journal of the last Congress, because it would “be disgracing their records.” Yet now we find that it bears a “strong resemblance to a plan “unanimously agreed to by all the Commissioners of the several Colonies, met at Albany in 1754,” and consequently entered upon their records, as worthy of the attention of all America. Such are the strange, capricious, and inconsistent conduct of men who have resolved to desert the paths of truth and candour.

And as if truth and the convictions of reason were too powerful to be longer suppressed, it is at last confessed, in the introduction, that had the plan of 1774 “been produced as perfect and complete as the one of 1754, it would have met with a more favourable reception”. Here again is a full acknowledgment that the former has not deserved the abuse which has been cast upon it, and that it only required to be more “perfect and complete” to entitle it to a favourable reception. It is a just observation of a great Lawyer and a Statesman, “nihil simul et semel inceptum, et perfectum est;” that there is scarce any thing of human invention which is at first perfect; it may be concluded, without derogating from the merit of the great man who proposed it, that the plan of 1754 was, when proposed, in this state, and that it did not assume its present form until it had been canvassed by, and received the alterations and amendments of the collected wisdom of the Governours and Delegates of the several Colonies. Had the last Congress acted the same candid and impartial part agreeable to their first resolution, the last plan might have been made equally perfect. If it contained the great outlines of a rational system of union between Great Britain and the Colonies, it: was their indispensable duty to furnish the materials wanting to finish the work within, and to complete the superstructure. And it is yet the duty of the pretended Patriots, who are wasting pen, ink, and paper, with their calumnies, to point out its defects, and propose the proper alterations and additions. And as none of them have been capable of offering to the publick any other more perfect system of union, this would certainly be acting the part of real friends to their Country, and save them from the disgrace which must attend the continued proofs they are exhibiting, of some deep-laid, dark designs, which they do not care to unfold.

But it is further alleged, that the plan agreed in the Congress at Albany, “bears a strong resemblance to that introduced by a Delegate from this Province, into the late Congress, as his own, and that it is but right to take the child from it putative, and restore it to its real parents.” It being a matter of no importance to the publick, whether the ingenious Doctor Franklin, or the Pennsylvania Delegate, was the author of the last plan, no notice would be taken of the introduction, did not the above charge strike at the honour and candour of the Delegate. But as this is the sole design of it, it is hoped the publick will not think it improper to have before them what may be said in vindication of his injured honour and character. A comparison of the two plans, and a just representation of his conduct at the time he proposed the last, will prove that this “strong resemblance” exists neither in the names, the matter, or substance of the plans, and were they the same, that he had no intent to assume to himself the merit which belonged to another.

1. The plan agreed to at Albany is properly called, in its title, “A Plan of an union of the several Colonies,” &c.; and the one proposed by the Pennsylvania Delegate is, “A Plan of union between Great Britain and the Colonies.”

2. The first forms a distinct inferiour Legislature for the Colonies, composed of two perfect branches only, upon the same principles and model of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, without any incorporation or union with the British Legislature. But the second proposes to establish a grand British and American Legislature, by a political union and incorporation of the Representatives of the freemen of America with the King, Lords, and Commons.

3. By the first, the Legislative acts of the Grand Council are made subject to the negative of the King, as Representative of the British State, and afterwards to his negative, as one of the branches of the British Legislature. By the second, this negative in the Crown is rendered altogether unnecessary, and totally excluded, by a direction in one of the Articles, that the acts of the Grand Council shall be immediately transmitted for the approbation or dissent of the Parliament of Great Britain, before they are valid. And thus these acts would only remain subject to the negative of the Parliament, while the Grand Council would also enjoy the like negative on all the acts of the British Legislature which concern their general interest and welfare, either “civil, criminal, or commercial.”

4. The Legislature of the first plan, and all its constituents, were to remain subordinate to the authority of Parliament, although America is not there represented, there being nothing either in the expressions, matter, or implications of the plan to exclude it, but, on the contrary, an express acknowledgment of that authority. But in the second, this subordination, now so much complained of, and the great object of the dispute which is likely to involve America in ruin, is taken away, and a remedy proposed by an union of the British and American members of the State, upon constitutional principles, by which the latter is placed on a par of power, and will enjoy the same solid security for their rights and freedom with the former; as under this plan no money can be taken from them, no taxes laid, none of their manufactures restrained, or their commerce prohibited or burthened, without their consent.

5. Thus we find that the first plan proposes no more than an union of the Colonies by a Grand Assembly of their Representatives, subject to a negative on their acts in the Crown, and afterwards to the repeal and control of the Parliamentary authority, which leaves the rights of America unrestored, the authority of Parliament over us arbitrary, and the essential grievances of America unredressed; while the latter proposes a political union of the Colonies with Great Britain, in which the rights of the Colonies are restored on the most solid principles of liberty; the Parliamentary authority over them modified and, rendered safe and constitutional; the cause and reason of our complaints removed; and a solid foundation laid for a permanent union and harmony between the two Countries.

I could descend to many other particulars in which these plans materially differ; but this must be unnecessary, as it cannot be thought strange that they should be substantially variant from each other, when impartial men will give themselves time to reflect on the different circumstances and motives which gave rise to them. At the time when the first was proposed, the supremacy of Parliament over the Colonies was not questioned by any American. The design of the Congress was to propose some mode to His Majesty, by which the Colonies might be enabled to ascertain the just proportion of aids that each ought to contribute towards their general safety, which was then immediately endangered by their disunion, and to establish some power to compel the refractory and unwilling to a performance of their general political duties among themselves. Here the