ey might do some good, and constantly strove to enlighten the
ruling class of England upon conditions and sentiment in the colonies.
His examination before the House of Commons in February, 1766, marks
perhaps the zenith of his intellectual powers. His wide knowledge,
his wonderful poise, his ready wit, his marvelous gift for clear and
epigrammatic statement, were never exhibited to better advantage and no
doubt hastened the repeal of the Stamp Act. Franklin remained in England
nine years longer, but his efforts to reconcile the conflicting claims
of Parliament and the colonies were of no avail, and early in 1775 he
sailed for home.

Franklin's stay in America lasted only eighteen months, yet during that
time he sat in the Continental Congress and as a member of the most
important committees; submitted a plan for a union of the colonies;
served as Postmaster General and as chairman of the Pennsylvania
Committee of Safety; visited Washington at Cambridge; went to Montreal
to do what he could for the cause of independence in Canada; presided
over the convention which framed a constitution for Pennsylvania; was
a member of the committee appointed to draft the Declaration of
Independence and of the committee sent on the futile mission to New York
to discuss terms of peace with Lord Howe.

In September, 1776, Franklin was appointed envoy to France and sailed
soon afterwards. The envoys appointed to act with him proved a handicap
rather than a help, and the great burden of a difficult and momentous
mission was thus laid upon an old man of seventy. But no other American
could have taken his place. His reputation in France was already made,
through his books and inventions and discoveries. To the corrupt and
licentious court he was the personification of the age of simplicity,
which it was the fashion to admire; to the learned, he was a sage; to
the common man he was the apotheosis of all the virtues; to the rabble
he was little less than a god. Great ladies sought his smiles; nobles
treasured a kindly word; the shopkeeper hung his portrait on the wall;
and the people drew aside in the streets that he might pass without
annoyance. Through all this adulation Franklin passed serenely, if not
unconsciously.

The French ministers were not at first willing to make a treaty
of alliance, but under Franklin's influence they lent money to the
struggling colonies. Congress sought to finance the war by the issue of
paper currency and b