eace," and now
saw the seventh swiftly approaching its end, might well doubt the
efficacy of those acts to which his young and impetuous colleague
attached so much importance. But in Congress the majority was with
Adams, and for a while there was what Gouverneur Morris called a rage
for treaties.

The Committee of Secret Correspondence, as I have already said, was
formed in November, 1775. One of its first measures was to appoint
agents,--Arthur Lee for London, Dumas for the Hague, and, early in the
following year, Silas Deane for France. Lee immediately opened relations
with the French Court by means of the French Ambassador in London; and
Deane, on his arrival in France in June, followed them up with great
intelligence and zeal. A million of livres was placed by Vergennes in
the hands of Beaumarchais, who assumed the name of Hortalez & Co., and
arranged with Deane the measures for transmitting the amount to America
in the shape of arms and supplies.

And now the Declaration of Independence came to add the question of
recognition to the question of aid. But recognition was a declaration of
war, and to bring the French Government to this decisive pass required
the highest diplomatic skill supported by dignity and weight of
character. The Colonies had but one man possessed of these
qualifications, and that man was Franklin.

The history of diplomacy, with its long record of solemn entrances and
brilliant processions, its dazzling pictures of thrones and courts,
which make the head dizzy and the heart sick, has no scene half so grand
as the entrance of this unattended, unushered old man into France, in
December, 1776. No one knew of his coming until he stood among them; and
then, as they looked upon his serene, yet grave and thoughtful
face,--upon his gray hairs, which carried memory back to the fatal year
of Ramillies and the waning glories of the great Louis,--on the right
hand which had written words of persuasive wisdom for prince and
peasant, which had drawn the lightning from its home in the heavens, and
was now stretched forth with such an imperial grasp to strip a sceptre
they all hated of its richest jewel,--a feeling of reverential awe came
over them, and they bowed themselves before him as in the secret depths
of their hearts they had never bowed to emperor or king. "He is at
Nantes, he is on the road," was whispered from mouth to mouth in the
saloons of the capital, as his landing became known. Some asserte