May 30, 1776: Ben Franklin’s (First) Diplomatic Mission
The late winter journey from Philadelphia to Montreal required Benjamin Franklin and the commissioners to travel through wilderness country, to brave wintery elements and to sleep in makeshift quarters. The 70-year-old Benjamin Franklin was uncertain that he could complete the arduous journey and wrote to Josiah Quincy:
I am here on my Way to Canada, detain’d by the present State of the Lakes, in which the unthaw’d Ice obstructs Navigation. I begin to apprehend that I have undertaken a Fatigue that at my Time of Life may prove too much for me, so I sit down to write to a few Friends by way of Farewell.
