pressure upon the action of Government. And in doing this he
had to contend not only with the local difficulties of his position, but
with the difficulty of uncertain communications: months often
intervening between the sending of a despatch and the receiving of an
answer, and affording newsmongers abundant opportunities for idle
reports and unfounded conjectures, and enemies ample scope for malicious
falsehoods.

It was a happy circumstance for the new state, that her chief
representative was a man who knew how to wait with dignity and when to
act with energy; for it was this just appreciation of circumstances that
gave him such a strong hold upon the mind of Vergennes, and imparted
such weight to all his applications for aid. No sooner had Congress
begun to receive money from Europe than it began to draw bills upon its
agents there, and often without any certainty that those agents would be
in a condition to meet them. Bills were drawn on Mr. Jay when he was
sent to Spain, and his already difficult position made doubly difficult
and humiliating. Bills were drawn on Mr. Adams in Holland, and he was
unable to meet them. But such was the confidence of the French Court in
the representations of Dr. Franklin, that he was enabled not only to
meet all the drafts which were made upon him directly, but to relieve
his less fortunate colleagues from the embarrassments in which the
precipitation of their own Government had involved them.

And thus passed the first twelve months of his residence in
France,--cloudy and anxious months, more especially during the summer of
1777, when it was known that Burgoyne was coming down by Lake Champlain,
and Howe preparing for a great expedition to the northward. Then came
the tidings that Howe had taken Philadelphia. "Say rather," said
Franklin, with that air of conviction which carries conviction with it,
"that Philadelphia has taken Howe." Men paused as they repeated his
words, and suspended their judgment; and when the news of the Battle of
Germantown and the surrender of Burgoyne followed, they felt deeper
reverence for the calm old man who had reasoned so wisely when all
others desponded. It was on the 4th of December that these welcome
tidings reached Paris; and the Commissioners lost no time in
communicating them to the Court. The second day after, the secretary of
the King's Council came to them with official congratulations.
Negotiations were resumed and carried on rapidly, nothing