If Americans were not more solidly behind the rebellion, it was that their emotions had not been deeply aroused. Was not the chief dispute a matter of taxes? No one likes to pay taxes, but though people were ready to parade and protest against them, not all were willing to risk their lives rather than pay them. It took the protégé of Franklin, Thomas Paine, to point out that the rebellion was for something much more important than taxes.
Paine had settled in Philadelphia, taken a job with the Pennsylvania Magazine, and had, in the few months he had been in America, written some fine articles, among them one of the first attacks on slavery to appear in the American press. Franklin saw him in October and proposed that he write “a history of the present transactions,” an account of events that had led to the present crisis. Paine had only looked mysterious, saying that he was working on something.
Then in January 1776, Franklin received the first copy off the press of a pamphlet titled “Common Sense.” Though it was published anonymously, “written by an Englishman,” he guessed easily who had written it.
“Common Sense,” written simply and clearly, was a passioned and reasoned plea for secession from England. It showed Americans how much they had to gain from independence and how little there was to lose. It made them hold up their heads with the pride of being American and convinced them they were fighting for the most precious thing in the world—their freedom. There is no estimating the enormous service done by “Common Sense” in uniting the colonies in a common cause.
In February, Franklin sent in his resignation to the Pennsylvania Assembly and its Committee of Safety: “Aged as I am, I feel myself unequal to do so much business....” At the same time he accepted another arduous assignment from Congress, to head a delegation to Canada to try and win French Canadians to the side of the colonies.
Two expeditions had already been sent to wrest Quebec from the British, one under General Richard Montgomery, the other under Colonel Benedict Arnold. Both had failed. Montgomery had been killed. Arnold, severely wounded, had retreated with his battered army to Montreal.
Franklin, aged seventy, set out on his mission the last week of March 1776. There were stops in New York, Albany, and in Saratoga where the snow was still six inches deep. From there they rode horseback across to the Hudson and proceeded up the river in rowboats to Fort Edward. “I began to apprehend that I have undertaken a fatigue that at my time of life may prove too much for me,” Franklin wrote Josiah Quincy.
They sailed along the coast of Lake George in open flatboats, fighting their way through ice. When the cold grew too bitter, they stopped to make fires, thaw out, and brew tea. By April 25 they had reached Lake Champlain, and in clumsy wagons drove over bad roads to the St. Lawrence, where they again took to boats. Their hard journey ended at Montreal on the 29th. Benedict Arnold, now a general, came to meet them, and there was a cannon salute to the “Committee of the Honourable Continental Congress,” and to the “celebrated Dr. Franklin.”
The conferences the next day proved what Franklin had doubtless suspected. The Canadians for the most part found British rule preferable to French rule and were not dissatisfied. The majority were Catholic and as such hostile to the colonies because of unpleasant things that had been said about their faith.
General Arnold and his men were penniless. Franklin loaned them about 350 pounds of his own money in gold. On May 6, word came that the British were sending reinforcements from England. Franklin guessed that the Americans would be driven from Canada; it happened just a month later. He stayed on until May 11, then, realizing nothing more could be done, set out for home.