"The people must not only have justice," he said, "they must have liberty."
They returned by the Cambridge road under the bowery elms. It would be a long time before they would see each other again.
In such beneficent thoughts of Boston the Franklin medal had its origin. It was coined out of his heart, that echoed wherever it went or was destined to go, "Beloved Boston!"
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.—A MYSTERY.
The fame of Benjamin Franklin now filled America. On the continent of Europe he was held to be the first citizen of America. In France he was ranked among the sages and philosophers of antiquity, and his name associated with the greatest benefactors of the human race. It was his electrical discovery that gave him this solid and universal fame, but his Poor Richard's proverbs, which had several times been translated into French, were greatly quoted on the continent of Europe, and made his popularity as unique as it was general.
The old Boston schoolmaster who probably taught little Ben to flourish with his pen could have little dreamed of the documents of state to which this curious characteristic of the pen would be attached. Four of these documents were papers that led the age, and became the charters of human freedom and progress and began a new order of government in the world. They were the Declaration of Independence, the Alliance with France, the Treaty of Peace with England, and the draft of the Constitution of the United States.
In his service as agent of the colonies and as a member of the Continental Congress his mind clearly saw how valuable to the American cause an alliance with France and other Continental powers would be. While in Europe as an agent of the colonies he gave his energy and experience to assisting a secret committee to negotiate foreign aid in the war. It was a time of invisible ink, and Franklin instructed this committee how to use it. He saw that Europe must be engaged in the struggle to make the triumph of liberty in America complete and permanent.