Ben Franklin in Canada isn’t completely unreasonable, even though he was already the oldest delegate to the Continental Congress at 70. He was America’s first diplomat and a very skilled one at that, with oodles of charm.

But Franklin in Canada was also a bad idea, because his health was bad and it’s not like he could just shoot up the New York Thruway to get there. He had to head up the Hudson River through Albany and Saratoga, and then across Lake Champlain. And he had to do it in wartime, in hostile territory.

For all that, however, Franklin’s failure in Canada eventually led to the Battle of Saratoga and in turn got the French on our side.

So maybe it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all.

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