But the “Paxtang Boys” when they learned the effective measures for protection taken in the city, halted their march at Germantown. A delegation of leading men composed of Benjamin Franklin, Israel Pemberton and Joseph Galloway was sent by Governor Penn to meet the insurgents and hear their grievances.
The “Paxtang Boys” presented their side, and left a committee consisting of Captain Matthew Smith, afterward vice president of the State, and James Gibson, to accompany the Provincial Commissioners to Philadelphia, where they met the Governor and the Assembly, to whom they presented their grievances in the form of a declaration. The remaining members of the party returned to their homes, and the inhabitants of the city to their peaceful avocations. And thus ended the “Paxtang Boys’ Insurrection.”
Benjamin Franklin Presents Treaty Plan to
King of France, December 28, 1776
So soon as the idea of independence had taken the practical shape of a resolution and declaration adopted by the Continental Congress, the Americans began to contemplate the necessity of foreign aid, material and moral. Congress appointed a Secret Committee of Correspondence for the purpose and sent Silas Deane, of Connecticut, upon a half-commercial, half-diplomatic mission to France.
Franklin was at first opposed to seeking foreign alliances. “A virgin state,” he said, “should preserve the virgin character, and not go about suitoring for alliance, but wait with decent dignity for the application of others.”
But Franklin soon became chief suitor in Europe.
Later in the autumn of 1776 Dr. Franklin was sent by the Continental Congress as a diplomatic agent to France. He sailed in the ship Reprisal. The passage occupied thirty days during which that vessel had been chased by British cruisers and had taken two British brigantines as prizes.
Franklin landed at Nantes, December 7. Europe was not prepared for his arrival, having had no advance notice of his coming and the event was in consequence one of great surprise. By this time Franklin’s fame was world-wide.