AS Statesman and Diplomatist 8i 



portant office under his successor, and was thus in close 

 touch with the ministry, while also constantly in intimate 

 contact with Franklin ; and, as the interest of the French 

 government in our affairs increased, there is good reason 

 to believe that he was an active medium through whom 

 confidential relations were maintained before and after 

 the official recognition of the American Commissioners 

 between them and the ministry without exciting the 

 curiosity of the outside world. Mr. Bigelow truly says 

 that " his timely and judicious hospitality has associated 

 his name only less prominently than Franklin's with the 

 fortunes of the great American republic," and that the 

 people of the United States should hold him in grateful 

 and honored remembrance. 



It is impossible to state the value of Franklin's public 

 services. They are simply inestimable. 



The scheme of union which the Congress of the seven 

 northern colonies adopted in 1754 was Franklin's scheme. 

 It contained some of the germs which afterwards took 

 root in the Constitution of the United States. It aimed 

 at the formation of a self-sustaining Federal government 

 with authority as obligatory in its sphere as the local 

 governments were in their spheres. The home govern- 

 ment rejected it as too democratic, and the colonies as 

 granting too much to prerogative, a test of its real mod- 

 eration, which was generally characteristic of all that 

 he ever proposed. The colonies were not yet ripe for 



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