ent reverses
had rendered somewhat desponding. It was decided immediately to send
an embassy of highest character to France. Three were to be chosen by
ballot. On the first ballot Dr. Franklin was unanimously elected. He
was seventy years old. And yet probably there was not another man in
America so well qualified to fill that difficult, delicate and
responsible post. Franklin, in the saloons of diplomacy, was fully the
peer of Washington on the field of war. When the result of the ballot
was announced Franklin turned to Dr. Rush, who was at his side, and
said,

"I am old and good for nothing. But as the store-keepers say of their
remnants of cloth, 'I am but a fag end, and you may have me for what
you please.'"

Thomas Jefferson, then thirty-three years of age, and as pure a
patriot as ever lived, was next chosen. He was already renowned in
France as the writer of the Declaration of Independence. Silas Deane,
a native of Connecticut, and a graduate of Yale, then one of the
agents in Europe, was the third.

It required no little courage to cross the ocean, swept by the fleets
of Great Britain. Had Franklin or Jefferson fallen into the hands of
the British government, it is certain that they would have suffered
severe imprisonment; it is by no means improbable that they would have
been promptly hung as traitors. It was a noble sacrifice for country
which led Franklin, having numbered his three-score years and ten, to
incur these perils.[27]

[Footnote 27: In the year 1780, Mr. Henry Laurens, formerly President
of Congress, was sent as ambassador to Holland. The ship was captured
off Newfoundland, after a chase of five hours. The unfortunate man was
thrown into the Tower, where he was imprisoned fifteen months, "where"
he wrote to Mr. Burke, "I suffered under a degree of rigor, almost if
not altogether unexampled in modern British history."]

Jefferson was compelled to decline the mission, as his wife, whom he
loved with devotion rarely equalled, and perhaps never surpassed, was
sick and dying. Arthur Lee, then in Europe, was elected in his stead.
He was a querulous, ill-natured man, ever in a broil. A more
unsuitable man for the office could scarcely have been found.

There were two parties in France who favored the Americans. One
consisted of enthusiastic young men, who were enamored with the idea
of republican liberty. They were weary of Bourbon despotism. The
character of Louis XV., as vile a king as ever sat