At the same time it was ordered that three advice-boats should be established, “one to ply between North Carolina and such ports as shall be most convenient to the place where Congress shall be sitting,” one other between the State of Georgia and the same port. The boats to be armed, and to be freighted by individuals for the sake of diminishing the public expense. The state of the country was such that it became necessary to enlist the services of the most prominent men in its cause, both at home and abroad; and who so popular then as Benjamin Franklin? A writer speaking of him and the period says, “With a fame unequalled in brilliancy by that of any other man of those times, not only as a philosopher and sage, but as a profound political thinker, and an undaunted asserter of the rights and liberties of his country, Franklin’s name was now familiarly known and revered throughout all Europe.” Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that he should have been appointed one of the commissioners to France? The commissioners first appointed for this purpose, on the 26th of September, 1776, were Franklin, Silas Dean, and Thomas Jefferson. The last, however, declined, and Arthur Lee, of Virginia, was put in his place. Mr. Lee and Mr. Dean were both in Europe, the former having been employed several years in England as a colonial agent, and the latter having been sent out in the preceding March by the committee of secret correspondence, with a view to diplomatic as well as commercial objects; and Franklin, after a boisterous voyage in the United States sloop-of-war _Reprisal_, Captain Wickes, and after escaping from the guns of several British cruisers, met them in Paris in the latter part of December, 1776. This portion of history is familiar to all. In the absence of Franklin, Richard Bache attended to the post-office business, and in all respects carried out his father-in-law’s plans. In March, 1777, Franklin received from Congress a commission as minister to Spain. After residing in Europe nearly nine years, acting in the capacities named, he returned to America, and arrived in Philadelphia on the 14th of September, 1785. His return was greeted with every mark of personal regard and public respect. We will close this portion of our postal history, and Franklin’s connection with it, by the following letter, which he wrote to Mr. Thomson shortly after his return home. It is to be regretted that it is a _finale_ which reflects but little credit on our government at that time, and gives occasion for our opponents to repeat the old saying that “republics are ungrateful.” Nor is Franklin’s case an isolated one. Franklin, speaking of unrequited services to his friend, says,—