Satisfied that his usefulness in England was at an end, Franklin entrusted his agencies to the care of Arthur Lee, and on the 21st of March 1775 again set sail for Philadelphia. During the last years of his stay in England there had been repeated attempts to win him (probably with an under-secretaryship) to the British service, and in these same years he had done a great work for the colonies by gaining friends for them among the opposition, and by impressing France with his ability and the excellence of his case. Upon reaching America, he heard of the fighting at Lexington and Concord, and with the news of an actual outbreak of hostilities his feeling toward England seems to have changed completely. He was no longer a peacemaker, but an ardent war-maker. On the 6th of May, the day after his arrival in Philadelphia, he was elected by the assembly of Pennsylvania a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In October he was elected a member of the Pennsylvania assembly, but, as members of this body were still required to take an oath of allegiance to the crown, he refused to serve. In the Congress he served on as many as ten committees, and upon the organization of a continental postal system, he was made postmaster-general, a position he held for one year, when (in 1776) he was succeeded by his son-in-law, Richard Bache, who had been his deputy. With Benjamin Harrison, John Dickinson, Thomas Johnson and John Jay he was appointed in November 1775 to a committee to carry on a secret correspondence with the friends of America "in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world." He planned an appeal to the king of France for aid, and wrote the instructions of Silas Deane who was to convey it. In April 1776 he went to Montreal with Charles Carroll, Samuel Chase and John Carroll, as a member of the commission which conferred with General Arnold, and attempted without success to gain the co-operation of Canada. Immediately after his return from Montreal he was a member of the committee of five appointed to draw up the Declaration of Independence, but he took no actual part himself in drafting that instrument, aside from suggesting the change or insertion of a few words in Jefferson's draft. From July 16 to September 28 he acted as president of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania.