In the course of the 1760s and 1770s, William Pitt the Elder, Sir William Pulteney, and George Grenville, amongst other prominent Britons and colonial Americans, such as Joseph Galloway, James Otis Jr., Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, the London Quaker Thomas Crowley, Royal Governors such as Thomas Pownall M.P., William Franklin, Sir Francis Bernard, and the Attorney-General of Quebec, Francis Maseres, debated and circulated plans for the creation of colonial seats in London, imperial union with Great Britain, or a federally representative British Parliament with powers of taxation that was to consist of American, West Indian, Irish and British Members of Parliament.Recreating the American Republic – Charles A. Kromkowski. Retrieved on 2013-07-15.Pownall, Thomas (1722–1805), colonial governor and politician, was born on 4 September 1722 in St Mary Magdalen's parish, Linc. Bernardoconnor.org.uk (November 19, 2005). Retrieved on 2013-07-15.Project MUSE – Thomas Crowley's Proposal to Seat Americans in Parliament, 1765–1775. Muse.jhu.edu. Retrieved on 2013-07-15. – Franklin discussed the merits of American M.P.s with Governor Shirley of Massachusetts in the 1750s, who is said to have agreed – see also Thoughts on the Present State of Affairs with America, and the Means of ... - William Pulteney. Retrieved on 2013-07-15.Constitutional History of the American Revolution: The Authority of Law – John Phillip Reid – Google Boeken. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-15. Despite the fact that these ideas were considered and discussed seriously on both sides of the Atlantic, it appears that neither the American Congress, nor the colonial Assemblies, nor the British Government in Westminster, at least prior to the Carlisle Peace Commission of 1778, officially proposed such constitutional developments.The Issue of Representation. Academicamerican.com. Retrieved on 2013-07-15. Governor Thomas Hutchinson apparently referred to a colonial representational proposal when he wrote that, The Assembly of Massachusetts Bay was the first which ever took exception to the right of Parliament to impose Duties or Taxes on the Colonies, whilst they had no representatives in the House of Commons. This they did in a letter to their Agent in the summer of 1764 ... And in this letter they recommend to him a pamphlet, wrote by one of their members, in which there are proposals for admitting representatives from the Colonies to fit in the House of Commons ... an American representation is thrown out as an expedient which might obviate the objections to Taxes upon the Colonies, yet ... it was renounced ... by the Assembly of the Colony which first proposed it, as utterly impracticable.
