g out. We know that you may do us a
great deal of mischief, and are determined to bear it patiently as long
as we can. But if you flatter yourselves with beating us into
submission, you know neither the people nor the country." Other men
wrote ardent words and indulged in the rhetorical extravagance of
intense excitement in those days; Franklin sometimes cloaked the
intensity of his feeling in humor, at other times spoke with a grave and
self-contained moderation which was within rather than without the facts
and the truth. Everything which he said was true with precision to the
letter. But his careful statement and measured profession indicate
rather than belie the earnestness of his feeling, the strength of his
conviction, and the fixedness of his resolution.

Thus briefly must be dismissed the extensive and important toil of
eighteen months, probably the busiest of Franklin's long and busy life.
In September, 1776, he was elected envoy to France, and scant space is
left for narrating the events of that interesting embassage.

CHAPTER IX

MINISTER TO FRANCE, I DEANE AND BEAUMARCHAIS: FOREIGN OFFICERS

It is difficult to pass a satisfactory judgment upon the diplomacy of
the American Revolution. If one takes its history in detail, it presents
a disagreeable picture of importunate knocking at the closed doors of
foreign courts, of incessant and almost shameless begging for money and
for any and every kind of assets that could be made useful in war, of
public bickering and private slandering among the envoys and agents
themselves. If, on the other hand, its achievements are considered, it
appears crowned with the distinction of substantial, repeated, sometimes
brilliant successes. A like contrast is found in its _personnel_.
Between Franklin and Arthur Lee a distance opens like that between the
poles, in which stand such men as Jay and Adams near the one extreme,
Izard, William Lee, and Thomas Morris near the other, with Deane,
Laurens, Carmichael, Jonathan Williams, and a few more in the middle
ground. Yet what could have been reasonably expected? Franklin had had
some dealings with English statesmen upon what may be called
international business, and had justly regarded himself in the light of
a quasi foreign minister. But with this exception not one man in all the
colonies had had the slightest experience in diplomatic affairs, or any
personal knowledge of the requirements of a diplomatic office, or any
op