to accept the scheme and the king disapproved it for the reason, Franklin said, that it had “too much weight in the democratic part of the constitution.”  Though the Albany union failed, the document is still worthy of study because it forecast many of the perplexing problems that were not solved until thirty-three years afterward, when another convention of which also Franklin was a member drafted the Constitution of the United States.

[Illustration:  BENJAMIN FRANKLIN]

=The Military Education of the Colonists.=—­The same wars that showed the provincials the meaning of union likewise instructed them in the art of defending their institutions.  Particularly was this true of the last French and Indian conflict, which stretched all the way from Maine to the Carolinas and made heavy calls upon them all for troops.  The answer, it is admitted, was far from satisfactory to the British government and the conduct of the militiamen was far from professional; but thousands of Americans got a taste, a strong taste, of actual fighting in the field.  Men like George Washington and Daniel Morgan learned lessons that were not forgotten in after years.  They saw what American militiamen could do under favorable circumstances and they watched British regulars operating on American soil.  “This whole transaction,” shrewdly remarked Franklin of Braddock’s campaign, “gave us Americans the first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of British regular troops had not been well founded.”  It was no mere accident that the Virginia colonel who drew his sword under the elm at Cambridge and took command of the army of the Revolution was the brave officer who had “spurned the whistle of bullets” at the memorable battle in western Pennsylvania.

=Financial Burdens and Commercial Disorder.=—­While the provincials were learning lessons in warfare they were also paying the bills.  All the conflicts were costly in treasure as in blood.  King Philip’s war left New England weak and almost bankrupt.  The French and Indian struggle was especially expensive.  The twenty-five thousand men put in the field by the colonies were sustained only by huge outlays of money.  Paper currency streamed from the press and debts were accumulated.  Commerce was driven from its usual channels and prices were enhanced.  When the end came, both England and America were staggering under heavy liabilities, and to make matters worse there was a fall of prices accompanied by a commercial depression which extended over a period of ten years.  It was in the midst of this crisis that measures of taxation had to be devised to pay the cost of the war, precipitating the quarrel which led to American independence.