In February of the following year General Lafayette, who had distinguished himself as a volunteer in the rebel army, returning to France on leave, brought a commission from the American congress to Dr Franklin as sole plenipotentiary of the United States to the court of France. From this time until the close of the war it was Franklin's paramount duty to encourage the French Government to supply the colonists with money. How successfully he discharged this duty may be inferred from the following statement of the advances made by France upon his solicitation:--In 1777, 2,000,000 francs; in 1778, 3,000,000 francs; in 1779, 1,000,000 francs; in 1780, 4,000,000 francs; in 1781, 10,000,000 francs; in 1782, 6,000,000 francs; in all, 26,000,000 francs. To obtain these aids at a time when France was not only at war, but practically bankrupt, and in defiance of the strenuous resistance of Necker, the minister of finance, was an achievement, the credit of which, there is the best reason for believing, was mainly due to the matchless diplomacy of Franklin. Writing to the French minister in Philadelphia, December 4, 1780, the Count de Vergennes said-- "As to Dr Franklin, his conduct leaves congress nothing to desire. It is as zealous and patriotic as it is wise and circumspect, and you may affirm with assurance, on all occasions where you think proper, that the method he pursues is much more efficacious than it would be if he were to assume a tone of importunity in multiplying his demands, and above all in supporting them by menaces (an allusion to the indiscreet conduct of Franklin's colleagues), to which we should give neither credence nor value, and which would only tend to render him personally disagreeable." Again, February 15, 1781, Vergennes wrote:-- "If you are questioned respecting an opinion of Dr Franklin, you may without hesitation say that we esteem him as much on account of the patriotism as the wisdom of his conduct; and it has been owing in a great part to this cause, and the confidence we put in the veracity of Dr Franklin, that we have determined to relieve the pecuniary embarrassments in which he has been placed by congress. It may be judged from this fact, which is of a personal nature, if that minister's conduct has been injurious to the interests of his country, or if any other would have had the same advantages." Franklin had been for some years a martyr to the gout, which, with other infirmities incident to his advanced age of seventy-five, determined him to ask congress, in 1781, to relieve him, in a letter so full of dignity and feeling, that no one can read it even now, after the lapse of nearly a century, without emotion.