Two members of the Franks family served creditably in the Continental army, while a third (they were probably cousins) became known through his sympathy for England. David Salisbury Franks, who is described as a “young English merchant,” settled in Montreal, Canada, in 1774, and was active both in business and in the affairs of the Jewish community. On May 3, 1775, he was arrested for speaking disrespectfully of the king, but was discharged six days later. In 1776 General Wooster appointed him paymaster to the American garrison at Montreal, and when the army retreated from Canada he enlisted as a volunteer and later joined a Massachusetts regiment. In 1778 he was ordered to serve under Count d’Estaing, then commanding the sea forces of the United States; upon the failure of the expedition he went to Philadelphia, becoming a member of General Benedict Arnold’s military family. In 1779 he went as a volunteer to Charlestown, serving as aide-de-camp to General Lincoln, and was later recalled to attend the trial of General Arnold for improper conduct while in command of Philadelphia, in which trial Franks was himself implicated. He was aide-de-camp to Arnold at the time of the latter’s treason, in September, 1780; on October 2 he was arrested, but when the case was tried the next day he was honorably acquitted. Not satisfied with this, Franks wrote to General Washington asking for a court of inquiry; on November 2, 1780, the court met at West Point and completely exonerated him. In 1781 he was sent by Robert Morris to Europe as bearer of dispatches to Jay in Madrid and to Franklin in Paris. On his return Congress reinstated him into the army with the rank of Major. On January 15, 1784, Congress resolved “that a triplicate of the definitive treaty [of peace] be sent out to the ministers plenipotentiary by Lieut.-Col. David S. Franks” and he again left for Europe. The next year he was appointed Vice-Consul at Marseilles; in 1786 he served in a confidential capacity in the negotiations connected with the treaty of peace and commerce made with Morocco, and on his return to New York in 1787 brought the treaty with him. On January 28, 1789, he was granted four hundred acres of land in recognition of his services during the Revolutionary War.